


If Never Again, If Every Day

by gallifreyburning, takiki16



Series: Fic Tennis - The Old Guard [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (I mean sort of? Not really?, (i.e. nobody stays dead long), 1099 Nicolo/2021 Joe, 2021 Nicky/1099 Yusuf, Amnesia, But to be clear - everyone is completely themselves, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack and Angst, Crossing Timelines, Domesticity and the Crusades, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I guess it's time-displacement amnesia, Immortal Husbands, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Time Travel, and also simultaneously, just at different points in their own timeline.), kaysanova, where one person has lived through events the other hasn't experienced yet.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 84,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning, https://archiveofourown.org/users/takiki16/pseuds/takiki16
Summary: Current-day Nicky wakes up one morning to find himself re-living the first day he met Yusuf in 1099, and Nicolò from 1099 finds himself with a stranger named Joe in 2021. Time-crossed and facing old and new challenges, the two lovers have to find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Fic Tennis - The Old Guard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922218
Comments: 1239
Kudos: 2111





	1. 2021

**Author's Note:**

> “I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.” - Lemony Snicket
> 
> Massive thanks to [stonecarved (figure8)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/stonecarved) ([lbgtmazight](https://lgbtmazight.tumblr.com/)) for very generously giving this thing a beta/sensitivity read. That being said, any historical/cultural/religious mistakes are solely at our feet, as writers.

“We’re lost,” Joe moans. “It’s too fucking dark, I can’t see the street signs.”

“We aren’t lost. El Rinconcillo is just up the hill and around the corner.” Nicky only slurs his words a little - a testament to his power of concentration, given the amount of wine he drank over dinner. He hasn’t tripped over a single cobblestone, either. 

“Up the hill? This whole city is nothing but hill,” Joe laughs and snags him by the belt, pulling him into the shadows of the nearest door stoop. It’s so late, the street is deserted, all the shops and cafes closed hours ago. Nicky lets himself be pushed against the wall. Joe takes his face into his hands, fingertips curling against his stubble. “Nico, we stayed at El Rinconcillo the last time we were in Valparaíso. It doesn’t exist anymore.” 

“Did we?” A deep crease forms between Nicky’s eyebrows, his gaze fixed on Joe’s mouth. “It is so hard to keep track.”

“Especially after two hundred years and two bottles of pinot,” Joe replies, leaning in to lick the taste of wine off his lips. Joe is perfectly sober, but nibbling Nicky’s earlobe makes him giggle and grind their hips together; this creates a pleasant buzz for Joe, no alcohol necessary. 

Smashed between Nicky’s ass and the alley wall, a cell rings tinnily. This has the unfortunate side effect of instantly sobering Nicky up. 

“No,” Joe breathes into his ear as Nicky tries to arch far enough from the wall to pull it from his pocket. “Let it wait.”

“Andy,” Nicky replies simply, shoving harder with his hips and snatching the phone. He isn’t concerned about Andy calling; he’s concerned that it might be Nile, reporting some mortal disaster from their girls’ trip into the Chambal Valley in India. Joe huffs in resignation and rests his forehead on Nicky’s shoulder while he answers. 

“ _Pronto._ Oh, hello Copley,” he says with obvious relief, and the knot in Joe’s stomach loosens. Turning his head, he tucks his nose into the warm spot beneath Nicky’s jaw, basking in the rumble of his voice through the rest of the conversation. 

The call is short; the file Copley sends to both of their phones is long. A confirmed case of human trafficking and suspected organ harvesting being run through a Silicon Valley tech mogul’s development labs - technically, in the bunker beneath them. 

After they finally find the hotel (La Fauna, not El Rinconcillo), they check out and take the next flight to California, with a quick stop-off for supplies at their safehouse in San Francisco - one of several dozen the group has collected over the centuries. Copley’s intelligence puts the hostile count at around twenty, not including the tech mogul. Joe and Nicky leave a message for Andy and Nile, but they don’t bother waiting for backup. Time is of the essence, anyway; people are being held prisoner in this bunker, they can’t twiddle their thumbs for a flight across the Pacific. 

The night they breach the compound, things go as well as can be expected. Half the hired muscle does the only logical thing and deserts their post, running into the hills the instant they come face-to-face with two gun-toting, sword-wielding, death-defying maniacs. The other half goes down easily enough, after that. 

The most difficult aspect of the operation is figuring out how to open the bunker door. (Neither of them mentions how much quicker it would be with Booker, although both of them think it - Nicky with grim resignation, and Joe with still-simmering rage.)

Joe is putting the finishing touches on the knots tying the unconscious tech mogul to his chair when Nicky’s horrified voice comes from the next room: “They’re children, Joe. _Madre di Dio,_ they’re all children.”

With a last, rough yank on the rope, Joe follows him inside. Four children are crammed into a cell, varying in age from toddler to teen. There are no visible signs of abuse, and the lab is free of any medical equipment; there’s definitely been something going on here, but not organ trafficking. 

Nicky has already shed his weapons and is picking the lock, speaking gently to them about how they’re safe now, this is a rescue. On a nearby desk, Joe finds a stack of drivers licenses. He sifts through them, squinting at the names. “Looks like there were adults here at some point. Sara Williamson, Pedro Yglesias, there were four of them, too.”

One of the kids, a girl, stands up. “How do you know my name?” she asks, a sharp eye on Nicky as he pulls open the door and steps back, gesturing for her and the others come out. 

“It’s all right,” he says in his most soothing tone. The two toddlers start wailing; the other kid, not much older, stays warily planted in the corner of the cell. 

“Sara Williamson?” Joe repeats, holding out the license for her inspection. The woman on the license is in her fifties, and this girl is in her teens. She edges past Nicky, who is busy picking up a toddler and checking him for injuries, and comes to snatch the card from him. “Hey, are you ok?”

“Earlier, were those gunshots? Are you guys SWAT or something?”

“Or something,” Joe replies, reaching into his backpack offering her a bottle of water. She stares at it but doesn’t take it. _Smart girl_ , he thinks. “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. I went to sleep at Shauna’s house in Encino and woke up here an hour ago. They were already here.” She gestures at the younger kids. “They haven’t been very talkative, obviously. Where is this place? It looks like a spaceship or something.”

“Not a spaceship. We’re just outside of Saratoga,” Nicky says. 

“What? Like, in _San Francisco_?!” she says, shrill. She should have been panicking long before this, probably, but adrenaline does strange things to the human body. “I’m supposed to be at Shauna’s! My mom’s going to be so pissed!”

At this point, Nicky has a crying toddler on each hip and is bouncing them, humming a lullaby under his breath. “Call the police,” he says to Joe, tipping his head at the landline on the desk, beside the licenses. “Let them be returned to their families.”

Joe makes the call while the girl stands beside him, breathing shallowly and staring at the picture of the other Sara Williamson on the license. 

“What do you suppose this is?” Nicky asks, after Joe leaves an anonymous tip with emergency services and hangs up. Joe comes to take one of the toddlers from him, shushing her and swaying as they stand together in front of the obvious centerpiece of the lab. 

It’s a thick acrylic box - bulletproof, Joe’s certain - the size and shape of a briefcase. Inside is a black rock. It’s weird, for sure; the light seems to bend around it, instead of reflecting off it, but it doesn’t look particularly precious. Certainly not worth building a bulletproof case for and a lab around.

“We’ll take it with us back to the safehouse,” Joe says, absently reaching over to thumb a smear of blood off of Nicky’s perfectly healed cheek. “Copley might know what to make of it.”

* * *

The black rock remains stubbornly, mysteriously inert through the rest of the job - the careful dance of fading away just as the locals arrive; the ride back to the safehouse; stripping and cleaning of all the gear they had used. Joe leaves Nicky puzzling over it in the kitchen while he gratefully stumbles into the single shower and turns the water up as high as it will go. 

Dirt, blood, and brain matter sluice down in rusty rivulets. Joe closes his eyes. They won. _They won._ They did the right thing. The children are safe. _Alhamdullilah._

“Leave some hot water for me!” Nicky yells through the door. 

“Nothing is stopping you from coming in here and sharing!” Joe yells back, feeling the tightness in his chest loosen. Nicky snorts, but Joe can hear the telltale soft _thump_ of gear hitting the floor so he knows it worked. 

“Either you stop grinning, or I can remind you of what happened the last time we tried having sex in this shower,” Nicky grumbles, yanking aside the plastic curtain and stepping in. “The mark in the drywall is still there.” 

“It was a memorable experience!” Joe steps out of the water so Nicky can rinse, lathering soap over the deeper stains. “Better than staring at that strange rock all night.”

“I don’t think it is a rock. It does not look like any rock I have ever seen.” 

“Maybe we should put it in the safe?” 

“I doubt that safe will stop anyone who can fight past us to get it.” Nicky holds out his hand for the soap, and Joe takes a turn under the spray to rinse off the suds. 

“It’s not that.” Joe frowns. “I just don’t like leaving it out in the open. What if they were developing a new weapon, some kind of ... explosive, maybe?” 

“True. But then in that case, I do not think the safe will protect _us_ either.” 

The hot water chooses that moment to cut off, so both of them hastily step out. Joe is trying to dry the last fistful of curls with his threadbare towel when he turns around and catches Nicky’s eye. 

Nicky. The love of his life. Who is smiling that very particular not-smile as he leans forward gently and _licks_ a stray drop of water running down Joe’s neck.

“I think there are better places for us to be than the shower,” Nicky murmurs.

Joe agrees. Completely.


	2. 2021

Valparaíso’s bright sun still regulates Joe’s internal clock, stirring him awake in the quiet hours before _salat al-fajr_. Joe knows from long experience of jetlag that he won’t be falling asleep again anytime soon, so he snuggles closer into Nicky’s stirring back and tries to enjoy the rare peace. Today, they will call the Chambal Valley and listen to Andy scold them for taking a job without her. Nile will be half-worried, half-curious - maybe she will have answers for their strange black rock. For now, Joe is content to wait. 

Or he _would_ be content. If for some reason Nicky didn’t stink like an angry horse.

“Darling _,_ ” Joe murmurs sleepily, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t know what you were doing all night while I was asleep, but you smell like you are going to use all the hot water again.” 

Nicky _screams._

Joe flails back with a yelp as Nicky spasms, shoving out of the warm blankets and sprawling onto the floor. Panicked, Joe reaches for the lamp but a wild kick catches the bed stand and sends it clattering across the room. Nicky twists on the floor, getting his feet under him and whipping around with - 

_Fuck!_

Joe throws a hand up just in time to catch the longsword as it arcs towards his face. A line of fire opens up across his arm. Out of sheer shock, Joe almost lets the blade catch his neck on the backhand before he ducks and hurls himself bodily forward. 

Nicky hits the floor with a wheeze, the longsword clattering to the floor. Joe grabs frantically for Nicky’s shoulders, struggling to see in the dim city glow of the window. 

“Nicky! Nicky, stop!”

“ _Let go of me!”_ Nicky snarls in a strange voice, flailing wildly at Joe’s hands. “Get _off!”_

Nine hundred years of adoring that voice make Joe pause, long enough for Nicky to wrench one of his hands free and punch him square in the face. 

Blood fills his nose, salty and hot. Joe squawks indignantly - _what the hell?_ \- scooting back and flailing an arm out just in time to trip Nicky as he lunges for the door. Nicky kicks backwards, but Joe catches his boot - _did he put his gear back on during the night?_ \- and yanks hard, tumbling them both back together in a struggling mess.

Nicky tries to knee him in the gut, but Joe is awake and upset enough now to start using his training. He shoves the knee away, grabbing both of Nicky’s wrists and flinging all of his weight forward to pin Nicky on his back, straddling his waist as Nicky tries to buck him off. Nicky is yelling incoherently at him, furious sounds from a wild face that …

... _that does not look like the one he kissed last night._

The street lamp outside the window flickers on, letting Joe get his first clear look. 

Long, tangled hair, pulled back from a frantic face covered in an uneven beard. Familiar grey eyes, wide with fear and anger. Grimy quilted sleeves, the color dull and indistinct in the half-light. A leather belt. _Chainmail,_ pooling around his neck and elbows, clinking as Nicky struggles to get away.

Joe stares, dumbstruck. 

_Nine hundred and twenty-two years._

Beneath him, Nicolò di Genova glares up with eyes as furious and terrified and wild as he was on that first day outside the walls of Jerusalem. Joe knows this face better than his own; the arch of those brows, the high bridged nose, the curve of that beloved mouth. He has killed this face a hundred times, kissed it a hundred million. The man beneath him now is looking at him as though he does not know Joe at all. As though they were strangers. 

_As though they were enemies._

A few drops of blood trickle down Joe’s chin and fall into the metal links.

_What the fuck?!_

“Let me _go_!” snarls Nicky in what Joe belatedly realizes is old Ligurian, just as the other man twists desperately sideways. 

Joe’s hand has healed from the sword cut, but most of his arm is still slick with blood. Nicky wrenches one hand free, arches his back, and manages to throw Joe off by a combination of brute force and Joe’s complete, paralyzing shock. Joe tries to force something out of his closed throat - _wait, stop, look at me!_ \- but Nicky claws across the floor and hurls himself against the window, crashing through the panes in a shower of glass.

The safehouse is built tall and narrow. Through the window, Joe hears a sickening pause, and then the sound of a body hitting the pavement. 

When Joe staggers to the window and looks down, the street is empty. 

_Shit, shit, shitshitshit_. 

Joe is moving before his thoughts coalesce into anything resembling coherence. He grabs the nearest pair of pants (Nicky’s, which are too short and fit looser in the hips than his own) and hops from one foot to the other as he yanks them on, because even in San Francisco people will call the authorities at the sight of one naked man chasing another sword-wielding man through the streets. He could jump through the window after Nicky, but waiting for a broken femur to heal will take longer than the stairs; he descends them a half-story at a time, vaulting over the railings and bursting out the front door of the house. 

The pre-dawn air is a shock of cold to his bare chest, burning Joe’s lungs as he pauses on the sidewalk and stares at the dark neighborhood, head cocked and listening. Faintly, not far, is the rasp of metal on concrete and a soft curse in Ligurian. 

He hustles in that direction, stalking instead of sprinting pell-mell. Whatever Nicky is going through, Joe isn’t inclined to run into the sharp end of a sword again. 

His first panicked analysis of the situation is that Nicky is injured - a concussion or amnesia, maybe, from a bullet or a bad knock to the head during their mission last night. And if Nicky is still suffering from an injury so many hours after the incident, this means that _he isn’t healing_. 

_All things die. Everything has to die. The only reason that we haven’t, is that it isn’t our time yet. If it is now Andromache’s, nothing you can do will stop it._

Joe’s hands clench into fists beside his hips, his stomach churning. _No. Fuck that. Fuck it all the way to forever._ Anyway, a brain injury might cause disorientation and violence, but it wouldn’t cause rapid hair growth during sleep, or explain how Nicky managed to pull together a period-authentic costume from their days in Jerusalem. 

Heart hammering and pulse roaring in his ears, Joe slows at the nearest corner and peeks his head around, scouting. The other man stands beside a line of cars parked along the curb, reaching out to touch a shiny silver Lexus with open-mouthed shock, as if verifying that it is real and not an hallucination. He is undeniably wearing a full set of ancient battle kit, from chainmail coif to hand-stitched leather boots. The only thing missing is a proper spangenhelm. He’s caked in blood and dirt, filthy from head to toe, and even from this distance his hand is visibly trembling. 

Nicolò - this is the name that Joe cannot help but think of him by, looking so much like the man he met nearly a millennia ago - sags visibly, shoulders slumped and his longsword is obviously forgotten in his left fist, the tip dragging the ground behind him. He resembles nothing so much as a lost, frightened boy dragging a blanket. 

Joe silently steps into the street and edges closer. Nicolò is too preoccupied to notice. He’s praying - or something like it - still in old Ligurian, a dialect that Joe hasn’t heard in centuries: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, I recant all the things I said when I renounced my orders and left your church. If this is death, if this place is heaven or hell or something in between, I beg mercy on my soul. Spare me, and I will devote myself to your -”

Exactly forty feet away, Joe coughs at a very intentional volume. 

Nicolò whirls around, eyes wide and wild as he unsteadily raises his sword. “ _You!_ ”

“You know me.” Not a question but a statement, a command, as if he’s willing an affirmative answer into existence. 

“Of course I recognize the asshole who stabbed me three times on the streets of Jerusalem in one night. You are a demon who cannot be killed,” Nicolò hisses. Joe politely doesn’t mention that by his own definition, Nicolò is also a demon. He makes a mental note to bring it up later, though, once he figures out what the fuck is going on and they’re in an existential place to argue about semantics again. Nicolò continues, “I _must_ be in hell, if you are here too. Is our punishment for our sins to kill each other for eternity?”

Joe holds out both empty hands, gesturing toward his own bare chest. “I’m unarmed. You don’t need the sword.” His ancient Ligurian is rusty; his grammar is probably atrocious. The other man doesn’t offer any critique. “This isn’t hell, it’s San Francisco.”

“San Francisco?” Nicolò echoes, a shrill edge to his voice that reminds Joe of the teenage girl they rescued, who thought she was in Encino. He gestures vaguely toward the cars. “You say this is some part of al-Andalus? Bullshit.”

At this point, Joe must look as lost and confused as Nicolò. Drunkenly mis-remembering a hotel in Valparaíso from two hundred years ago is one thing; forgetting the existence of Spain is something else entirely. “Al-Andalus hasn’t been around for hundreds of years, Nico.”

Nicolò backs up a step and bumps into the Lexus, a firm enough tap to activate the proximity alert. It chirps a single time in warning, the tail lights flashing, and for a second Joe thinks the alarm is going to start screeching. Luckily Nicolò pinballs away fast enough to prevent that from happening, swinging the sword to point at the car. He barks at Joe, “How do you know my name? You shouldn’t know my name. Don’t call me that!”

 _Fuck._ Joe needs a phone; he needs Andy. He can’t have either of those things until he gets Nicolò somewhere secure. From the corner of his eye, he sees the flicker of a curtain in a nearby window as someone notices the car alarm chirp. 

“I’m Joe. Yusuf,” he says, placing a hand on his chest. The words are soft and desperate; he’s breathless with the horror of having to reintroduce himself to the love of his life as if they were strangers. 

The obvious terror on his face is probably the only reason Nicolò lowers his sword and takes a half step closer. “How did I get here? Why have you captured me?” 

“I didn’t capture you. You came with me, remember?” Joe edges a few steps closer. Nicolò’s eyes dart nervously between him and the car. “Valparaíso. The job. The children in the cage. We saved them.” 

“That doesn’t explain why I _woke up in bed with you!_ ” Nicolò snarls. “You _killed_ me! And I…” His voice falters as his eyes snap to Joe’s hand, covered in blood but unmistakably whole. “And I killed _you_! I cut your throat and left your body by the Tower of David, and then you _haunted_ me through the streets…”

Nicolò’s voice cracks. He looks wildly around at the dark street. “This is hell, isn’t it? This is punishment for what I have done, for the blood we have spilled in the Holy City. I am trapped here forever, Mother of God …”

“Nicolò,” Joe says urgently. “My heart. This is not hell. We are _not_ demons. It is the year two thousand twenty-one, and we walked away from the siege of Jerusalem together. You are the love of my life, and you have been hurt very badly. Let me help.”

Nicolò’s eyes blaze, his sword point flashing back up. “I am not going _anywhere_ with you!” 

“I swear.” Joe holds his hands up. “I will swear by all the saints in heaven that I will not hurt you.” He gestures to the sword. “You can keep that, if you want. But know that I am telling you the truth. _I wish no harm upon you._ ”

Nicolò struggles visibly, the sword point wobbling in the air. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Joe sees a light coming on in a window two houses down. If someone calls the police, if they find Nicolò as he is now, with the job so close behind them…

He takes one careful step closer, then two. The distance between them closes slowly, Nicolò watching him every inch of the way like a frightened animal. Joe swallows down a sharp stab of hurt as he stops a few feet away, the point of the sword hovering at his throat. If Nicolò wanted to kill him again, he could do it with a flick of his wrist. 

“Nico,” Joe says again, struggling to put every last ounce of love and fear into his voice. Slowly, telegraphing every movement, he reaches up and slides the point of the sword aside. “ _Nicolò_. Come back with me. Please.” Nicolò is shivering violently, his eyes darting down from Joe’s face to his chest to his bare feet and back up again. He opens his mouth, wetting his lips with his tongue and inhaling - 

Several things happen at once. 

The first is that a car alarm goes off further down the block.

The second is that a window slams open and someone shouts into the street. 

The third is that Joe makes the critical mistake of reaching for Nicolò’s cheek instead of his hand. 

Nicolò shouts, starting away from Joe’s hand and stumbling into the silver Lexus. A loud klaxon promptly blares into the night, setting off a long line of car alarms down the street. Lights start turning up in the windows, and the sword clatters out of Nicolò’s hand as he turns and flees headlong into the night. 

_Shit!_

Joe bolts after him - surely he can outrun a single confused man in chainmail and boots - but as Nicolò rabbits frantically around a corner and leaps over a fence, Joe hits something coiled and sees concrete rushing up to meet him a split second before darkness falls. 

* * *

“I’m telling you, he’s gone!” Joe says into the phone, turning a corner to see yet another empty alley. “We woke up, he tried to cut my head off, and then he ran. And I’ve been looking ever since but he’s not _here!”_

“We’re on our way.” Nile’s voice is tinny through the speaker. “Andy’s sketchy friend couldn’t touch down in SFO or Oakland so we’re driving from another strip. You said he was wearing ... armor?” 

“Chainmail.” Joe rubs the bridge of his nose. 

“And he’s carrying a sword?”

“ _I_ have his sword. I have _both_ his swords. He dropped one on the sidewalk, but the one he carried for the job was in the safehouse where he left it! We haven’t had this one long. Where the hell did he get all that gear?”

“Joe. Listen to me. Nicky isn’t going to be walking around in all that without attracting some attention.”

 _Fuck._ “Well I’ve been looking since sunrise, and I haven’t heard anything. I tried shouting, but that might make it worse.”

Nile blows out a frustrated breath. “Have you checked Twitter? Instagram? Social media? We asked Copley to sweep local surveillance, but it never hurts to look.”

Joe hadn’t. He presses the round button on his phone, poking in frustration at the ridiculous small screen. “What would I even search for?” 

“Try location hashtags.” Andy’s voice shouts impatiently on the other end - a car door slams. “I gotta go. We’ll be there soon. Hey - keep us updated, okay? Watch your six.”

The call ends. Joe drops his hands to his sides, letting out a slow, shuddering breath. It wasn’t fair to take things out on Nile - _she_ wasn’t the one who had let half her soul run away. He misses his family with a sudden sharp ache - Andy and her millennia of stern strength, Booker with his dry sarcasm, Nile and her living roots in the world. This empty, merciless, present world that is at once smaller and larger than anything he remembers. Nicky ...

 _Nicky would know_ , Joe thinks, closing his eyes. _Nicky would know what to do_. 

Calm, fearless Nicky, who could cut straight to the heart of the problem with a few simple words. Nicky, with his sharp gaze and his quiet optimism and his fierce, loving determination to protect the ones he cared for. Nicky would not lose hope. Or direction. Nicky would take a step back from the troubled earth, find a vantage point, and plot a path to the solution as straight and true as a bullet from his rifle. Nicky would know what to do, if he were here.

But Nicky isn’t here. Or rather, he isn’t here in the way he should be. And Joe needs to find him. To find him, bring him to safety, show him _something_ familiar ...

_Wait._

Joe’s eyes snap open. 

In front of him, _right in front_ of him this whole damn time. High enough to be visible from the ground for a few blocks in either direction, topped with a familiar symbol ...

Joe presses the phone button again, swiping impatiently through the tiny squares until he sees the green and white bubble. Nile’s number is first. 

_I know where he is. Meet me there._

He pockets his phone and sets off running.

_Steeple. St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church._


	3. 1099

Nicky wakes up in hell.

At first, given the sting of smoke in the back of his throat and the thick haze hanging in the air, he groggily assumes that the safehouse is on fire. This jolts him awake, ready to leap out of bed, but he discovers that he isn’t actually in a bed. He’s laying on a pile of dung-filled hay, filthy and prickly and itchy. 

His arms automatically reach through the dark for Joe, but he finds only emptiness. The realization that he’s alone sends dread tingling from his scalp to toes. 

Eyes watering, he sits up and squints at his dim surroundings. This isn’t the safehouse; he’s in a rough-hewn building - a one-room stable, if he had to guess - and he’s curled up naked in one of the two stalls. There’s a metal helmet beside his knee, and a loaded crossbow the likes of which he hasn’t seen for more years than he can count. Not outside of a museum, anyway. 

It’s still night, he’s fairly sure, except there’s a dreadfully familiar red glow outside and the sound of screaming and clashing metal in the far distance. The strains of dying battle, a gruesome symphony he has heard far too often in his very, very long life. Wisps of ash drift in through the open stable door. This building might not be on fire - not yet - but the city outside _is_ burning.

_A nightmare? Surely._

Disoriented, panic gnawing his gut, Nicky reaches for the wall to steady himself and stand up. A dangerously quiet command comes from the corner beside the door: “Stay where you are.” 

“Joe?” Freezing in a half-crouch, he squints in the direction of the voice - one he would recognize anywhere. The words are a different matter entirely. Nicky is fluent in several different dialects of Arabic, but for some reason Joe conjugated the verb tense wrong, mangling the imperative into near-jibberish. 

The other man blends almost perfectly into the shadows of the deep corner, sitting cross-legged with a scimitar balanced across his knees. 

“ _Joe? Joe?_ ” he mimics, high-pitched and mocking. For some reason Joe’s name sounds foreign on his own tongue, as if he’s never heard this syllable before. The back of Nicky’s neck prickles, his hackles rising. “You bleat like a goat.” 

He stands in a fluid motion, scimitar in his fist. Finally bathed in the red glow from outside, this is undeniably Joe, but his curly hair is wild and matted with dried blood and his beard is ragged and unkempt. He’s wearing leather armor splashed with crimson stains from head to toe. He’s obviously been injured at least a dozen times, mortally large holes gaping across his breastplate.

Nicky’s brain goes to static. A shadow of a memory, from an eternity past, pricks his consciousness. Monstrously worse than deja vu, it sends bile burning up his throat. He should say something - he _has_ to say something - but his chest is too tight, he can’t breathe.

_I know this place. I have lived this moment. Joe cut my neck so deep he nearly took my head clean off, and I shot him through the heart with a crossbow bolt. We’ve been here before._

“I was leaving, you see. The streets are red with death, you Frankish devils have left no one for me to save. I was looking for a horse, and I found you again instead. Four times this day, Allah has cursed me with the sight of your ugly face. And here you are one last time, a dumb animal in a stable.” Joe’s cold, contemptuous stare flickers down Nicky’s naked body. “Doing what dumb animals do, I suppose. It seems right I should put you down once and for all, before this night is over.” 

Nicky desperately wants this to be a nightmare, but the straw is too rough against his bare feet and the smoke too acrid in his eyes. Joe’s words are in an ancient Arabic dialect that hasn’t been spoken aloud in centuries, and his voice is drenched in loathing. Nicky cannot deny the proof of his senses. 

The truth is plain: he has somehow been returned to the moment of his greatest sin. The worst day of his life, the deepest point of his depravity and violence before he knew he should - he _could_ \- be better. Before he spent the rest of his days atoning through words and deeds, and came to know what rich joy existed in devoting himself heart, soul, and body to the man in front of him. 

_What have I done, to deserve such punishment? Has my life of service - my_ penance _\- meant nothing?_

“God and all His saints, have mercy,” Nicky wheezes in Italian, dizzy with shock. Black spots dance in his vision as he stares up at the love of his life and his greatest enemy. This isn’t Joe, not yet, not before so many years and adventures that have yet to happen. 

But he _is_ Yusuf. 

Yusuf huffs. “Why am I bothering to speak at you? What does it matter? You only bleat in your Frankish tongue, you are too dumb an animal to even know what I am saying.”

He steps forward, sword lifted; Nicky shifts one foot back, still crouching, to broaden his base of support. His fingernails dig into the wooden walls on each side of the stall, cornered as he is inside it. Defending himself means fighting back, and that’s out of the question if it involves hurting Yusuf. He won’t wield the crossbow against him again, not like last time, so he braces his body to accept the blow instead. 

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani!” Nicky doesn’t duck or flinch as he meets the other man’s eyes, this name hanging between them like a shield. Yusuf’s step falters, his advance stops, and his lips open in surprise. In Arabic, a panicked mishmash of ancient vocabulary and modern grammar, Nicky begs, “Please, Yusuf. I am not your enemy. I swear on my life, on the God we both serve, on the fig tree that grows in the courtyard of your family’s dar in Mahdia. I am your” - the word _love_ twists on his tongue, and he chokes out - “friend.” 

Yusuf’s cold gaze has gone electric, his weary breath turned ragged. “What did you say, devil?”

“I am no devil,” he rasps, willing it to be true. “Nicolò. Nicky. That is my name.”

In this moment, a shadow moves across the door of the stable. It’s another soldier, wearing the tattered colors of an Englishman and bearing a drawn sword. As he catches sight of what’s happening, he raises it with a roar and lunges forward, swinging at Yusuf.

With speed developed over a millennia of practice, in a movement as natural as blinking, Nicky snatches the nearest weapon - the crossbow - with both hands. He jerks sideways, aiming past Yusuf’s shoulder, and pulls the release mechanism. The bolt lodges deep between the Englishman’s eyes; he jolts backward at the impact, crumpling instantly against the doorframe and spinning halfway into the street. He doesn’t move again.

“Are you all right?” Nicky asks, gaze locked on Yusuf as he drops the crossbow and raises his hands in a clear gesture of peace. Slowly, he rises to his feet. 

White rings both of Yusuf’s eyes, wide with shock, and he forgets to raise his sword again. “You are mad!”

“I ... I might be?” He might fall on a sword and wake up in Joe’s arms, warm and safe and loved beyond deserving. For all Nicky knows, that might actually fix this nightmare. What is happening now defies reality. 

“You _are_ mad!” Yusuf stares at the dead Englishman, then back at Nicky. “You insane, _unnatural_ -”

“Listen to me!” Nicky says desperately, hands still up. “We need to get away from the city. If they are already in the streets then we only have -”

“Why should I?”

Nicky stops. “What?”

“You killed me! You _stepped over my body,_ and then you marched into al-Quds and killed everyone else! Look at this!” Yusuf snarls, jabbing at the dull sky. “That is the smoke of beautiful things burning, that is the sound of women and children dying, that is death and suffering that _your_ people brought here! And then you say _we must go,_ as though you have any right to speak! _Why should I listen to you?_ ”

Nicky swallows. “Because the Fatimids have lost al-Quds-”

“- to _you,_ you foreign bloodmonger -”

“- because the city is lost,” repeats Nicky doggedly, “and Godfrey of Bouillon will not be merciful when he finds out what you are!”

Yusuf’s eyes are sparking. “What would you know of who I am?”

“I know that you are …” Nicky struggles with the words. “I know that you cannot be killed. I know that you are a good man. I know that you have stayed to save what people you could, and I know that you will suffer unspeakable things if you are captured by the Franks today.” 

“And who told you these things? Your presence has never cursed my life before tonight!”

The words land like a physical blow. Nicky looks at Yusuf over a chasm nine hundred years wide, mouth open as a thousand things rise to his tongue and die, unspoken. “... _Eri nei miei sogni._ I … I dreamt of you.” 

Yusuf flinches back.

They stare at each other, frozen in time. There are flakes of ash in Yusuf’s hair, a grey patina over the high arch of his cheekbones, the few places where Nicky can see bare skin. His fingers were running through those curls last night. He knows what that skin would taste like, were he to wash the dust away. 

Carefully, Nicky steps forward, reaching out a hand. 

“I can help you -"

Yusuf lashes out with a hoarse cry. Nicky gags on his next words as he stumbles back, blood rushing into his airway from where the scimitar slit his throat. Death tastes familiar, after all these years. He scrabbles at his neck as the skin knits together, spitting out clots of bloody tissue to see Yusuf pressed, shaking, against the far wall. 

Yusuf chokes out a horrible, broken noise and raises the scimitar again. 

“ _Hey!_ Over there!”

Nicky and Yusuf turn at the same time as a knot of soldiers rounds the corner. 

They have obviously been looting. One has an embroidered robe draped around his shoulders, the fine gold thread twinkling in the dim light. Another has a rope of pearls swinging from his neck. A lanky officer, wearing an incongruously delicate gold circlet, is digging his heels into the sides of a nervous mare. The rich trimming on the harness clashes with the ragged hole in the toe of his boot. 

They see each other at the same time. Mounted Asshole grins and spurs the mare forward with a yell, eyes lit up with a familiar bloody gleam. Behind him, a wall of hungry smiles runs forward in wolfish unity.

Yusuf snarls, gripping his scimitar and shoving off the wall.

Nicky doesn’t remember moving.

The looters let out a surprised yell as he flings himself forward. Mounted Asshole makes the fatal mistake of ignoring Nicky in favor of the clear armed target, which makes the surprise on his face all the sweeter when Nicky pulls him off the horse and snaps his neck. The horse screams and kicks, catching one of the advancing men in the chest as Nicky yanks a dagger off of Dead Asshole’s belt and stabs a front runner in the eye. Pearl Necklace shouts and stabs wildly with his own dagger; Nicky hisses as he feels the blade catch on the edge of his collarbone. He grabs for the offending wrist, twisting viciously as his right hand closes around the fallen sword.

_I will kill you and eat you raw._

There is a cruel peace, in knowing his own strength. There is peace, in wrenching the sword up and hamstringing Pearl Necklace, drawing the blade out and cutting his shrieking head from his shoulders. There is peace, in parrying the roaring lunge of his companion and sinking his sword through the embroidered cloak into meat and bone. There is peace in the pain, in the screams of agony, in the smooth turns and pivots that his body has practiced for longer than these men will ever get to live. He is nine hundred years old, he has trained with one of the greatest warriors that ever lived and he is _furious_ \- at the greed, the savagery, the blindness and cruelty and _how dare you touch him, how dare you even look at his face…_

More soldiers run into the street. Nicky cuts his way through a mass of bodies, Andromache the Scythian’s voice murmuring in his ear - gap here, throat there, the white of an eye or a vulnerable belly. He knows, in a distant way, that he is taking damage that would kill a normal human. He knows, in a distant way, that he is healing and that his enemies are afraid. Yusuf is behind him somewhere, shouting something that sounds like _down_ , although the distressed neighing of the horse drowns out most of his voice. 

The fight ends like most fights - abruptly. 

Nicky pivots, panting, to face the next attacker and finds that he is alone in a street full of bodies. He staggers around - a slice to his left thigh hasn’t quite healed yet - to look for Yusuf, only to see a pile of straw and an empty stable. A clatter of hooves spins him around to the sight of Yusuf hauling himself into the mare’s saddle, struggling desperately to guide the foaming horse. She sidles, trying one last time to throw off the unwelcome rider, then takes off into the night. Yusuf doesn’t look back.

_What would you know of who I am?_

Nicky takes a long, shuddering breath. He licks his lips, tasting the salt of blood not his own. Jerusalem is full of an invading army. The inhabitants of the city are being hunted down, executed without thought for allegiance or religion. Yusuf won’t make it far, an exhausted rider on a spent horse already leaving bloody prints in the street.

At least, he won’t make it far _alone_. 

The crossbow Nicky dropped is still in the stable. He picks it up, and then pulls the gory bolt out of the dead Englishman’s head. 

He should probably find some fucking clothes. And a better sword.


	4. 1099

Memory is a fickle thing. The longer Nicky lives, the more fickle it becomes. He has a vivid recollection of the first time he kissed Joe in the autumn of 1100, and the third time he tasted mangoes in the summer of 1429, and the winter months he spent learning to play the erhu in 1623. 

He cannot for the fucking life of him remember the topography around eleventh-century Jerusalem well enough to know exactly which southward path he fled with Yusuf, the first time he lived through this series of events.

Trotting on a stolen horse past refugees trickling out of Jerusalem, wearing armor still wet with the blood of its former owner, Nicky recognizes none of the geographic landmarks around him. Instead, his head is full of song lyrics and the last day he spent with Andy and Nile. 

It was before they separated for their holidays a week ago - a thousand years into the future. The four of them were (will be? if Nicky could get migraines, he’d have one) in Singapore, in a rented flat on Orchard Road. Joe and Andy went to a nearby street market to gather ingredients for dinner, and afterward Nile crowded into the microscopic kitchen with Nicky to cook. He taught her how to make fish-head curry on the one-burner stove, and she turned on music, dancing and singing along to Frank Ocean on the speaker on her cell phone as she handed him utensils and ingredients. 

As usual, her energy was effusive and infectious. When he danced with her, she laughed in delight and told him he had potential. 

Before they parted ways at the airport, she made him a _playlist_.

Nicky stopped keeping up with modern music, oh … a literal age ago. There was a period in the 1980s when Joe became infatuated with club music and he insisted on toting around Tom Tom Club LPs, always descending into a mild sulk when they broke during transit between jobs. The albums that survived are probably still in one of their safehouses somewhere, gathering dust. 

After Nile put the playlist on his phone, Nicky spent the flight from Singapore to Santiago listening to Frank Ocean songs on repeat. Nile is a new, important part of his life, and he wants to understand why she danced in that microscopic kitchen. He paid particular attention to the lyrics, searching them for insight into who she is. 

Here in the desert, those lyrics crowd his thoughts.

 _Yes of course I remember, how could I forget how you feel  
_ _Y’know you were my first time, a new feel  
_ _It won't ever get old, not in my soul  
_ _Not in my spirit, keep it alive  
_ _We'll go down this road ‘til it turns from color to black and white  
_ _Or do you not think so far ahead?  
'Cause I been thinkin' 'bout forever._

In the darkness of pre-dawn, Nicky stops to offer water to refugees out of a waterskin on a saddle that isn’t actually his own. He asks, in broken grammar, if anyone has seen a soldier of Yusuf’s description on a dun mare, and only receives cold, suspicious stares in reply. He surveys the terrain in a vain hope that perhaps a certain outcropping of cedar on a hillside will stir one of his millennia-old neurons, and it will steer him in the right direction.

He also works very hard not to dwell on the fact that Booker and Nile won’t be born for centuries yet, because the idea of it opens a pit in his gut, and he can’t afford to fall down into that darkness right now. His thoughts are frantically scrabbling around other realities of this unreal situation - like his family in Genova, mother and brothers who he buried and mourned hundreds of years ago, all of them now alive and breathing just across the Mediterranean. 

Then there’s Andy and Quỳnh. _Quỳnh!_ Who is alive and free and _happy_ right now, who he will see again sooner rather than later, assuming that he is reliving a history that has already happened. 

Dawn breaks, the light brittle and frail as it creeps among the dry hills, and it occurs to Nicky for the first time that perhaps he has not been sent back to this time and place as punishment. Perhaps it is a gift - bittersweet and cruel, but a gift - because he knows the shape of the future. 

Maybe he has been put here, now, to save the people he lost the first time around. 

His head is so dizzy with contradictions and possibilities, he rides carelessly into a stretch of scrub around a hidden watering hole. Right there, naked in the muddy water as he washes the ash and blood of a massacre from his skin, is Yusuf. 

The horse skids to a stop, dust and stones clattering, and Nicky’s heart suddenly thunders in his ears. Water laps at Yusuf’s bare hipbones, his stomach lean from the siege. At the sight of Nicky, his face contorts in a complicated series of emotions and his eyes dart to his sword, lying atop his discarded armor on the shore. 

“Oh, here you are,” Nicky says brightly, as if the other man had simply wandered into another room of the house, instead of fleeing from him across the Judean wilderness. Meanwhile, his sniper instincts screech in muffled Italian in the back of his head, berating him for exposing himself so thoroughly. 

“Son of a whore!” Yusuf blurts out in obvious frustration, shoulders tense as he prepares to lunge for his weapon. 

“My mother had many faults, but infidelity was not one of them. On the other hand, my brother Luciano was notorious for it,” Nicky replies. It occurs to him that he’s very much in danger of babbling, because he’s _flustered_. Not just nervous in the presence of someone who will probably try to murder him in the next ten minutes, but properly butterfly-sick to his stomach with worry about whether this particular person might, at some point, _like him a little_.

Nicky has been loved and accepted for so long, basking in the unconditional security of his relationship with Joe, he had completely forgotten this sensation: to be looked at and not wanted, to be measured and found lacking. 

It feels fucking _awful_. 

Yusuf narrows his eyes in silent, judgmental reply - a reflection on Luciano and his philandering, Nicky hopes desperately. Maybe this time around, he should introduce Yusuf to his family. 

“I am not here to fight,” Nicky says. “I swear to never lift a weapon against you again, Yusuf. I just want to” - and here his words stumble, because he wants so many things - “I want to talk. You and I are the same, and God has put us here together for a reason.”

“You and I are nothing alike,” Yusuf replies. It’s a wonder the water doesn’t turn to ice around him.

“I will put down my weapons, but I must get off the horse first.” He pauses. “You are planning to cut my throat again?”

Yusuf crosses his arms, but he doesn’t move for his sword. “Certainly. Many times, until you fuck off back to the shithole you came from, and I never see you again.”

“ _Insha’Allah_.” Relieved, Nicky dismounts, careful to telegraph every movement. The crossbow he lays on the ground, a quiver full of gore-encrusted bolts by its side. The sword he ties to the pommel of the saddle. Yusuf watches him first with suspicion, then with growing incredulity as Nicky pulls daggers out of his belt, his gauntlets, and both his boots before setting a small hand axe on top of the pile. He probably doesn’t need the extra weight, but the axe had reminded him poignantly of Andy. 

“Bloodthirsty bastard,” Yusuf mutters, sloshing quickly through the water to where he left his clothes. “Step further back. All the way.” 

Nicky backs up obediently, raising his hands. Yusuf hesitates at the edge of the water, visibly weighing the benefits of walking out naked versus remaining unarmed, before stepping impatiently out and grabbing his clothes. 

“If you want to dry off first ...”

“Shut up!” Yusuf yanks his trousers on and shoves his feet into his boots. “Your darija is terrible. You sound like a drunk Varangian.” 

“We could try Greek?”

“You could try flinging yourself off a cliff!” The torn leather armor goes back on, drops from Yusuf’s wet curls tracking rivulets through the dried blood. Yusuf picks up his scimitar and turns to face Nicky. “Or better yet, go butcher some more of your own people! Why stop there? If you keep going, maybe all you Franks will slaughter each other and al-Sham will be left in peace!”

Nicky had done quite a bit more butchering on his way out of Jerusalem - Il Testadimaglio will be leaving with fewer knights than expected. But what comes out of his mouth is “Are you hungry?” 

“Am I _what?_ ” 

Nicky gestures to the saddlebag. “Are you hungry?” 

Yusuf looks hungry. Nicky knows, with terrible and intimate precision, what Joe looks like at the end of a long campaign. He has held Joe at the end of wars without number, has seen Andy, Quỳnh, and Booker grey with starvation and the effort of staving off death by inches. The siege of Jerusalem is not the longest that either of them endured, but Nicky hates even the hint of hollowness in that familiar face, the drawn tightness around those eyes.

A scoff. “So you are trying to poison me now?” 

“I gave you my word that I would never raise a weapon against you again.” Nicky gestures to the scimitar. “If you need me to prove it, I will.” 

“I _do not_ understand you!” Yusuf throws up his hands. “One day you come screaming through the walls with your siege towers, the next you are swearing your friendship and stalking me through the city! What do you want from me?” 

_I want to be yours._ “I told you that I dreamt of you. And I know you have been dreaming of me. And so long as we are both here, I do not think it is good for us to be alone -”

In retrospect, the scimitar whipping towards his face should not have been a surprise. 

* * *

The good thing about that day in the hills outside Jerusalem is that Yusuf does, eventually, eat the packet of dates in the saddlebag.

The less good thing about that day is that Yusuf spends most of it trying to kill him. 

_She had a daughter. A daughter that she loved more than life, only five years old, who loved ma’amoul and the color blue and never hurt another soul. He was my brother’s age - did you know that, invader? He wanted to heal people, he wanted to study medicine, he was a Christian, like you! They sold oranges in that market, there was a library in that square, there was music and laughter and poetry and your ugly army of illiterates burned in and killed them all. Why are you still alive? Why am I still alive? Why has Allah preserved me when I couldn’t save any of them, why why why..._

Around the tenth or twentieth death, it occurs groggily to Nicky that he may be running out of time. Yusuf al-Kaysani has only a few decades on this earth. Nicky has had nine hundred years - the laws of probability dictate that he is running closer to his time than Yusuf. He may not be able to afford this dance a second time, although it seems to go much faster when he isn’t fighting back. 

When he revives after the last time, coughing up blood, the sun is setting.

There is blood all around the spring hollow - most of it his, some of it not. Yusuf had screamed himself raw after noon, had collapsed in exhausted grief after the hottest part of the day. By some miracle, no roving band of soldiers had found them. The last sliver of sun has slipped under the edge of the earth, but under the rim of the clouds there are still bands of brilliant gold to offset the deep, bloody red. Yusuf is kneeling a few feet away, motionless but for the unsteady breathing of someone who has no more tears left to weep. 

They know - have spent the day in agonized knowing - why there is no _adhan_ over the Holy City tonight. 

_Joe should be here_ , Nicky thinks suddenly, feeling a tear trickling down his cheek. _Joe would know what to do._

How many times has he thought that over the centuries, from their first kiss to the last time Nicky fell asleep in those comforting arms? From the beginning, it had been Nicky stumbling clumsily in Joe’s wake, struggling with unfamiliar words and the iron walls of his upbringing while Joe opened up his world with nothing more than the brilliant light of his existence. Clever, laughing Joe, who wrote poetry that drew tears from stones, who made friends out of enemies in more languages than Nicky could count. Joe would know what to do, were he here in Nicky’s place. 

But Joe isn’t here. Or rather, Joe _is_ here - nine hundred years and a thousand lost names ago. 

And he needs Nicky right now. 

Yusuf doesn’t turn around as Nicky struggles up to sit beside him. They look at the rising hills, the ominously empty land, the deceptive peace of the distant city awash in the red light of a dying day.

Yusuf has curled his arms around his knees, bringing them into his chest against the growing chill. There are dried tear tracks down his face, splashes of old and new blood over his chest and arms. His hands are trembling. He looks impossibly, achingly young. He looks like an ancient, heartbroken old man. 

“I want to go home,” he whispers hoarsely, voice cracking. “ _I want to go home.”_

Nicky would give the world, the stars, a thousand years in hell to be able to put his arms around Yusuf’s shoulders right now. He wets his lips instead, offering up a silent prayer. 

“Let me come with you. You don’t have to be alone.”

Yusuf sighs, closing his eyes. He doesn’t say yes.

But he doesn’t say no _,_ either.


	5. 2021

Joe finds Nicolò on his knees in front of the altar in St. Thomas of Canterbury. The church is dim and empty, and the door shuts on silent hinges as he comes to a stop and stares down the aisle at the other man’s back. His chainmail glitters in the light filtered through stained glass, and rust-colored blood streaks his clothing beneath. 

This is no costume. It was obvious before, but Joe was frantic and distracted and had half-convinced himself that he was mistaken.

A rhythmic prayer drifts from Nicolò, Latin murmured like an autonomic reflex. Joe sucks in a slow breath to steady his nerves. If he doesn’t lure him to the safehouse before Andy shows up, she’ll probably knock him unconscious and drag him there by his long, greasy topknot, to stop him from exposing them further in public. Given the state of Nicolò’s nerves, this series of events would only make things worse for everyone.

_What the fuck am I supposed to say to my inexplicably feral 900-year-old soul mate, to get him to come home with me?_

Whatever else is going on, Nicolò is obviously traumatized. Joe has plenty of experience helping people, comforting them during a crisis. This is well-trod ground; he can handle this. 

He just has to take his own feelings out of the equation and focus on the mission. 

Exhaling, Joe walks up the aisle to Nicolò. The other man is so absorbed in his prayers, eyes shut, that he doesn’t notice until Joe kneels beside him in front of the altar, out of arm’s reach. This isn’t the first time they’ve knelt together on holy ground - from Mecca to Paris to Bihar and beyond, they’ve done this a dozen times and more, reciting holy vows of devotion to each other - but it might be the strangest. 

Nicolò doesn’t scream or run, at least. His lips stop moving, his eyes open, and even though he doesn’t look directly at Joe, his body tenses with dangerous, leonine readiness. From experience, Joe knows this means one of two things: they’re on a mission, and shit’s about to go sideways; or they’re in the bedroom, and Joe’s about to be fucked so tenderly and thoroughly, he won’t remember his own name for hours. 

In this church, neither seems ideal.

“Infidel,” Nicolò rasps, but the word sounds as automatic and absent-minded as his prayers. “You dare blaspheme the house of God with your presence?”

He may be traumatized, but he’s still acting like an asshole.

“Actually, He and I understand each other pretty well.” Joe keeps his tone light, gesturing at the cross in front of them and the gilded man permanently pinned to it, with his stylized, eternal wounds. “People get it backwards, that idea of blasphemy and sin. It’s easier to fixate the little things that don’t really matter - the word someone uses to call upon Allah, or the time of day they bend a knee - than to denounce the sins He really cares about, and to care for those who need His help.”

The words feel like Nicky’s as they come from Joe’s mouth, because he’s usually the one who best articulates this calling they both share - unflagging in his conviction, a mountain in his belief. A strange, unexpected grief pricks through Joe’s chest as he looks at the man beside him.

Nicolò’s eyebrows draw together, but he still doesn’t look at Joe; his attention is riveted to the crucifix. He murmurs something, and Joe’s brain scrambles to translate this ancient Ligurian word he hasn’t heard in centuries. 

It finally comes to him: “The innocent, yeah. He cares about them.”

“The children.” Barely a whisper, the words fall from Nicolò’s chapped lips.

Is he still worried about the kids they rescued from the lab last night? Before Joe can ask, a door opens on one side of the chancel, and three teenagers pop through wearing cossacks and carrying silver plates and goblets. 

_Shit. It’s Sunday?_ _Shit!_

“Oh my god,” one of the boys says, mouth dropping open at the sight of Nicolò. “That cosplay is _sick_.”

Nicolò surges to his feet, vibrating with panic. As he steps toward them, another teenager pulls a phone out from beneath his robe, the camera flash blinding as he snaps a shot. “Is this an _Assassin’s Creed_ thing? Is there a con nearby?” 

Joe is on his feet, too; he automatically takes hold of Nicolò’s elbow, to stop him from lurching closer to the kids. Nicolò doesn’t seem to notice. In a flood of old Ligurian, he says, “It isn’t safe here, the city isn’t safe! You can’t stay, you have to flee before they come. Even here, in God’s house, you are not safe! Please, I’ve seen - I’ve seen …” He exhales raggedly, unable to finish.

“What is that, Portugese?” 

And at the same time, the one with the camera phone dashes to the chancel door. “Father Yorke! _Father Yorke_!”

“Hey! Hey, it’s fine!” Joe says to Nicolò in Ligurian, dragging him back a few steps. He stumbles along, stiff with horror, and Joe waves at the kids. “Sorry guys, he just wanted a few pictures here for authenticity, y’know? We’re done now, though. We’re just leaving to get to that … con.”

Nicolò lets himself be led outside and sat beneath a tree just off the road, his chainmail clinking softly as he scrapes his filthy fingernails down his even filthier cheeks. The streets are quiet; it really must be a Sunday. 

“Those kids are safe. It’s safe here,” Joe says. Nicolò is in such distress, pale eyes wide and exhausted, it takes every scrap of his self control to keep his hands to himself. “If you come back to the house with me, we can check the police records and make sure those kids from last night are safe, too. That they got home to their families.”

“What do you know of the children last night?” The other man finally swivels his head to look at Joe - properly, _piercingly,_ as if aside from the church, he’s the only thing that has context and makes sense. “You have been here a long time? Longer than me?”

“Yes.” It seems like the right answer, even if Joe doesn’t completely understand the question. If nothing else, he was born three years earlier. 

“I was leaving Jerusalem because I couldn’t stay, not after the terrible things I saw and the unpardonable things we … what we _did_. But sin like that - how can someone outrun such unforgivable sin? I fell asleep in a stable. I died half a dozen times yesterday, but I must have died one last time in that stable, right? To wake up in his new place where there are no bodies in the streets, as if yesterday’s massacre never happened, and nothing makes sense?” Joe opens his mouth to reply, but Nicolò barrels on. “Except my head aches, and my skin itches from the blood of the dead I am wearing, and I am _fucking starving_. If I really died in that stable, how can that be?”

_I was leaving Jerusalem._

Joe has seen so many things in his very long life - terrible and wonderful and everything in between. Sometimes the shit he sees is so strange, it defies explanation. Throughout it all, Nicky has been beside him. The first and foremost of all the inexplicable events that shaped their lives, they experienced together. 

It is strange now, to have _Nicky_ be the event that defies explanation.

“As I said, this is not Jerusalem. Or al-Andalus,” Joe shoves his hands firmly into his pockets. “We can go back to the house and rest, get you something to eat. That might make you feel a little less like death.” 

“I doubt it,” mutters Nicolò, as his head turns to watch a bright red Volkswagen go by. “This place cannot possibly be real.”

“It will come back,” says Joe soothingly. “It is a lot to take in, but it will get better with time. And you are not alone.” 

“Why are you helping me?” Nicolò closes his eyes wearily, leaning his head back against the tree. “I didn’t even know your name before last night.”

Joe’s heart squeezes painfully. “‘Whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved all mankind,’ yes? Something about ‘all my fellow men?’”

“I still do not understand you. But then, I don’t understand anything anymore. Even the things that I thought were clearest.” Nicolò looks down at his hands, rubbing at the bloodstains. “Especially those things.” 

“You cannot understand everything in one day.” Joe stands, brushing grass off his pants, and holds out a hand. “We can start with a meal, yeah?” 

Nicolò eyes the hand in front of him, then reaches out hesitantly and allows Joe to pull him to his feet. 

“ _Benìscimo.”_ Joe smiles, trying not to let his heart rush up into his throat. “See? You are not alone.”

* * *

They are walking back to the safehouse before Joe remembers that Andy and Nile are still headed to St. Thomas. “Shit. Give me a minute, I need to call someone.”

“Call?” Nicolò looks at him warily. “Call who?”

“A ... a friend.” Joe steps back and pulls out his phone, finding Nile’s number. “Hey! You can meet us at the safehouse - I found him.” 

“ _What_?” A loud clatter. “Is he alright?”

“He’s -” Joe glances at Nicolò. “He’s fine. For now.” 

“What are you doing?” Nicolò looks around at the empty street, then back at Joe. “Who are you talking to?”

A distant shout over the phone. “Andy says put him on.”

Joe automatically holds the phone out in response. Nile’s voice crackles over the speaker.

“Nicky! Thank God, are you -”

Nicolò lets out a horrified sound and slaps the phone out of Joe’s hand. 

“ _Hey!_ ” 

“What _was_ that?” Nicolò points to the cracked remains on the asphalt frantically. “What was that thing?”

“It’s a -” Joe struggles briefly over the gap for _cell phone_ in ancient Ligurian. “It’s a ... a talking device? For people very far away?”

“First you speak to me of God, you kneel in His church, and then you shove ... _witchcraft_ in my face like some kind of sorcerer -"

“It’s not witchcraft, it’s …” _Damn._ He has no idea himself. Booker put one in his hand sometime in the 1990s and he hasn’t asked questions since. “Alright, maybe a little. But it wasn’t going to hurt you - I gave you my word, remember?” 

“Do your _friends_ practice the same thing?” 

“They ... might. You’re going to want to avoid doing that around them.” 

Nicolò watches with deep suspicion as Joe walks over to the broken phone, stomps twice on the pieces for good measure, and then throws the remains into a trashcan nearby.

It was time to get rid of that burner, anyway.


	6. 2021

Andy and Nile are grimly suiting up for a rescue mission when Joe and Nicolò walk back into the safehouse. 

“Joe!” Nile runs towards him for a hug, relief shining out of her face. “Is Nicky …?”

She pauses. In the full light, in the comparative normality of the safehouse, the stark contrast between the Nicky they know and his current state is sharper than ever. His hair is coming loose from its knot in long, greasy strands. The dirty beard and dark circles under his eyes stand out against the thin pallor of his skin. Dried mud and blood are flaking off the chainmail. He looks like a hunted, wild thing. 

Nile exhales. “Damn.” 

“He thinks he’s back in 1099,” says Joe, muffled in Nile’s shoulder. “He’s been going on about the fall of Jerusalem, dying for the first time, not knowing where he is. He freaked out when he saw my phone. And -" Joe swallows, fighting the sudden, relieved urge to cry. “And he doesn’t remember me. He doesn’t know who I am.” 

Nile pulls back from the hug. “How could he not remember _you?_ ”

“That’s what I want to know,” says Joe, voice cracking anyway. _“How could he not remember me?”_

They stare, speechless. The seconds tick onwards, taut with all of the horrible potential of the unknown.

Andy takes two quick strides across the room and punches Nicolò in the face. 

“ _Belìn!”_ Nicolò flails backwards. A dagger that Joe completely missed earlier appears in his hand - he had forgotten his beloved’s _charming penchant_ for squirreling weapons away. Joe and Nile shout and lunge forward simultaneously, Nile moving to cover Andy while Joe hauls a cursing Nicolò backwards by his shoulders. 

“What the _fuck,_ Nicky!” Nile yells, checking Andy for damage.

“Your sister is a spitfire,” says Nicolò angrily, wiping at his mouth. “Or maybe your wife. What did you say to her?”

“How is that helping?!” Joe glares across the room at Andy. “I just told you he was traumatized!” 

“Sometimes a knock to the head clears things up.” Andy bends, peering around Joe’s shoulders. “Sometimes not. Damn.” 

Joe throws up his hands. “Did I not explain about him falling out the window?”

“So we know he’s still healing!” Andy points at Joe’s gear, still stacked neatly by the wall. “You did a job - _without_ us - which means that you’re too hot to stay in the area for long. If Nicky got his head scrambled on the way out, then we need to get him back fast, or all of us are at risk!” 

“Copley said we have some time.” Nile eyes the blade in Nicolò’s hand. “But how about explaining that it’s not cool to _pull knives_ on Andy?”

“I can hear them trying to say my name, you know.” Nicolò uses a wall to prop himself up, bracing his feet. “Tell that Amazon I am not afraid of her.” 

“Tell him that I still understand Ligurian, and he _should_ be!”

“That he should be what?!”

“Everybody stop for a second!” Joe closes his eyes, digging his thumb into the ridge of his nose. “Listen, I don’t ... I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know why it’s happening. We didn’t do anything we haven’t done already on hundreds, _thousands_ of jobs before this. Andy, have you ever seen - did anything ever, with …?”

 _With Quýnh. With Lykon. With the people you loved, and lost_. 

“No.” Andy shakes her head. “Sometimes we got dizzy after healing from a bad hit, but nothing this complete.” 

“But that still doesn’t explain how Nicky woke up looking like _Encino Man_ over here.” Nile gestures to Nicolò. 

Joe’s attention snaps into focus, like a puzzle piece falling into place. “Encino! The job we did last night, one of the kids we rescued, she was from Encino. You know a man from there? Is he reliable?”

Nile’s eyebrows draw together and a long-suffering look passes over her face - that same look she has worn more and more recently, as she settles into the reality of life with three people who have lived a thousand years or more. Maintaining an evolving and functional understanding of technology, finance, and weapons over the centuries is one thing; the vagaries of pop culture tend to melt like snowflakes across their immortal skin as they walk through the decades. 

“Not a person. It’s a movie about a caveman who ends up in the 1990s,” Nile sighs. Andy’s dissecting gaze hasn’t left Nicolò, and at this point he subtly shifts to stand behind Joe - hiding, but with plausible deniability. Nile rocks up onto her toes, peeking at him over Joe’s shoulder. “The movie is hilarious. Not … like this.”

“What are they saying?” Nicolò pipes up behind him, obviously irritated to be the topic of conversation but left out of the proceedings. 

The back of her hand pressed to her nose, in old Ligurian even more broken than Joe’s, Andy replies, “They say you smell of shit, Nicky.” 

Here in the confined space of the house, Nicolò’s stench is eye-wateringly undeniable. Joe points toward the kitchen. “There’s a weird rock in there. We found it at the lab, during that job last night. The girl we rescued mentioned Encino. Her name was Sara Williamson, and there were some other kids too. I don’t know, maybe - maybe it’s all related, somehow?”

“The local police mopped up afterward?” Nile asks. Joe nods. “I’ll dig into the reports, find out what else they recovered in that lab.”

“I’ll take him upstairs and get him cleaned up,” Joe says, glancing over his shoulder at the wide-eyed Nicolò. 

“I’m coming along for backup,” Andy says, in a tone that brooks no argument.

* * *

_Joe._

Lips closed, Nicolò silently rolls the name around on his tongue. He has managed to keep Joe consistently positioned between himself and the dangerous woman as the three of them climb to the top floor of the house. She is still supervising him with the focus and cunning of a wolf, waiting for another excuse to attack. Nicolò fancies himself a decent fighter even without his crossbow, but this woman moves like nothing and no one else he’s ever seen. When she strikes again, there is a non-zero chance he’ll need to call for Joe to stop her. It seems important to get his name right when he finally says it aloud for the first time. 

_Joe._

He can feel the syllable in his jaw, the roundness of it and the way he won’t be able to replicate the hard _J_ the way Joe pronounced it when he introduced himself. That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he was promised protection, and even though Joe took his life a handful of times in Jerusalem, here in this strange new place Nicolò believes his promise.

At the top of the stairs, through an open door, Joe ushers him into a bedroom with a shattered window, a thoroughly tousled bed, and blood-splattered linens. 

Perhaps Nicolò should have expected this, but it takes him by surprise anyway. He stops, staring at the bed. Last night, he went to sleep broken and alone in a barn, his life and his faith burning to the ground just as surely as Jerusalem burned around him. This morning, he woke up here in this soft place, safely wrapped in warm, strong arms. They were the arms of his enemy, and yet he cannot deny that in his first groggy moments, before he was lucid, he felt the urge to turn toward that comfort and bury himself in it. Instead, the two of them wrestled like Jacob and the angel before Nicolò flung himself out the window.

Giving a wide berth, Joe edges around the room to fetch clothes from a sack on a nearby chair. He shoves them at Nicolò. The fabric is impossibly soft and fine between his fingers. “Leave the armor in here. The bathroom is too small for that chainmail.”

Nicolò half turns, giving a wary look at the wolf-woman lurking in the hallway. She grins. Maybe she’s trying to put him at ease, but all those teeth only enhance her predatory aura. 

“Your wife is bringing the ewer and basin?” Nicolò asks as he turns back to Joe, because there is nothing in this room to clean himself with, even if he does risk taking off his chainmail in front of the wolf-woman.

In the corridor, the wolf-woman coughs in surprise and then swears softly in a language Nicolò doesn’t recognize.

Joe studies his face with the intensity of a lost man trying to read a map. His dark eyes glitter, as deep and vast as the night sky, and a haunted desperation flickers across his features. His words are a question, but his tone is not: “My what.”

“Or perhaps the woman downstairs, who wears the cross? I thought -”

“Andy isn’t my wife. Neither is Nile.” 

“Oh. My apologies.” Nicolò shifts from one foot to the other; both of these people are staring at him as if he has sprouted a second head. Embarrassed, he yanks off his chainmail coif and shirt and drops them on the ground in a jingle of metal, as a show of contrition. He stands in his filthy, torn gambeson, feeling exposed. “Your sisters?”

“I can’t do this right now,” Joe blurts out, blinking hard. He seizes Nicolò by the wrist and drags him into a small closet, just off the bedroom. From the floor to the ceiling, everything is cold and white and shiny. Joe pulls back a curtain to reveal an even smaller cupboard, and points at a silver object sticking out of the wall. “Shower?”

“Beg pardon?” 

“Right. Fucking _perfect_ , we’ll take this from the _goddamn beginning_ , I guess. This is a shower.” In a whirlwind, Joe demonstrates various silver handles and water-producing mechanisms in this white closet, where even the latrine gleams. Then he leaves, slamming the door behind him. 

Nicolò stands alone, baffled. From outside comes the clear sound of Joe’s back hitting the door before he slides down to sit on the ground, his shadow dark along the crack between the floor. At first Nicolò assumes he is being guarded, the man outside his jailer. Then comes a faint, bitten-off groan - a desperate sound, full of misery. 

“Joe,” Nicolò whispers, the first time he has said the name aloud, the _J_ soft on his tongue. It feels nice there - certainly nicer than any of the other words he has been taught to call someone like Joe. He practices it a few more times, in case he needs to call for help, before stripping off his bloodstained clothes and confronting the concept of a shower. 

_This one for hot. This one for cold. Start, stop._

The sheer decadent _wastefulness_ of the fountain that comes spurting out shocks him so much that he immediately shuts it off again. The right lever goes hot enough to scald, while the left lever feels like ice. He can’t stop thinking about the poor bastard somewhere _pumping_ all of this, the servant stoking the fire that keeps the right lever warm. Or perhaps there is a cistern somewhere? An underground river, flowing hard and fast enough to force the water up through the spout? 

Nicolò turns the right lever decidedly off, and begins scraping at his hands under the resulting cold. Ash and dirt run in grey rivulets between his feet. There is blood soaked into the fine lines of his palms, blood dried under his nails in dark, accusing half-moons. Some of it is his. Most of it is not - the blood of the defenders on the wall, the foot soldiers rushing to the breach, _Joe_ throwing himself forward in furious, unrelenting desperation. Blood on his sword, blood on his hands, blood on the banner of his countrymen. 

_Deus meus, ex toto corde pænitet me omnium meorum peccatorum ..._

Nicolò scrubs harder, gritting his teeth. 

“ _Hey_!” Someone thumps on the door. “Using you clean, yes?” 

The wolf-woman’s Ligurian is still bad, but it serves to jolt him back to the present. An irritated-sounding conversation on the other side of the door, then Joe’s tired voice. “She means _use soap_ , Nicolò. The white thing, on the shelf in the wall.” 

The white block feels like a handful of river silt, and the bizarre cloying smell is strong enough to make him sneeze. It looks and feels nothing like the large brown bricks of coarse soap he remembers from home. But Joe has yet to lie to him, even in this strange new city with its saintly name, full of new and terrifying things. 

Nicolò rubs the bar hesitantly over the back of his arm, trying to build up enough friction to rub the stains out. The block is too smooth to do anything but build up a fine white froth, growing more and more slippery until it shoots out of his hand, bringing Nicolò unexpectedly down on the slippery floor with a yelp. 

Banging on the door. “Nico! _Nicolò!_ Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” No wolf-woman is going to barge in on him naked. Groaning, Nicolò rubs his head. There is an ashy smudge on the wall where his head fell as he grabbed for a handhold, right on top of a mismatching smear of plaster. The marks are almost exactly paired.

It is a vague comfort, Nicolò supposes. At some point, some other unfortunate soul about his size had slipped and fallen in the exact same way.


	7. 1099

The fucking Frank is still following him. 

Yusuf shifts restlessly on the makeshift pillow of his saddlebag, watching the firelight play over the camp. They are a few days south of al-Quds - _Jerusalem_ , as Nicky calls it - riding at a slow, hesitant pace that is less to do with stamina and more to do with the fact that Yusuf absolutely refuses to let his guard down. He ought to pray - it would bring him peace, or at the very least make him feel a bit more human. Guilt grows with the passing days, the missed offerings of _salat_ building up in that hollow, silent place where the call of the muezzin ought to be. Yusuf tells himself it is for his safety, for purity, that he is afraid the Frank will spill his blood on the clean earth if he turns his back. But the fear that burns in Yusuf’s secret heart is that his prayers will not be heard, now that ... now that he is what he is. 

_What am I?_

In his most vivid dreams, naked spirits covered in blood chase him through the dark streets of al-Quds. They gibber at him with starving, feverish eyes, reaching out with claws sharp as arrows as the northeastern wall crumbles over his head and buries him alive in corpses. Yusuf wakes in a cold sweat every time, gasping as he fumbles for his scimitar. Always a blade these days, instead of a pen. Always a blade, between him and his strange, quiet companion. 

_What am I?_

He could leave the Frank behind. Yusuf has considered it more than once - rising early in the morning while the other man sleeps, saddling the dun mare and slipping silently off into the dawn. The only thing stopping him is the raw terror of being alone. He cannot bear the idea that there is _no one else_ , no other being on this earth who shares his terrible, impossible secret. Who knows how long Yusuf will live? Who knows how many other strange and horrible things will manifest, things long-buried in his blood that rise to the surface at the call of some unknown voice? As unsettling as the Frank is, his presence is just slightly more palatable than the concept of eternal loneliness. 

But only _slightly._

Besides, the Frank would find him. He would find Yusuf, as he did outside the city, and _stare_ \- right through the back of Yusuf’s head with those sad, knowing eyes the color of dishwater until the tension grows too great and Yusuf finally snaps at him to break the moment. Such is Yusuf’s life, on the road with a madman. 

At least the Frank is having troubles as well.

The Frank - _call me Nicky_ , he says in his garbled voice - is a poor sleeper. He had offered to take first watch every night, which leaves Yusuf with the dubious midnight pleasure of watching him twitch and turn for what seems like hours until he finally falls asleep. The son of a dog has no qualms about turning his back to Yusuf - seems to prefer it, actually - but his restless shifting speaks of more than hard ground and travel rations. Yusuf hopes, with a certain savage satisfaction, that it is a guilty conscience which troubles him. But he also wishes that the Frank were not in the presumptuous habit of trying to _get closer to Yusuf_ to find a more comfortable spot. 

“Why do you keep looking at your wrist?” Yusuf bursts out impatiently. “Your hand has not gotten cleaner since the last time you checked.” 

A blink, then a wry half-smile. “I lost a ... a wrist cuff, before I met you. I keep expecting to see it there.” 

Yusuf sniffs. “You should go ask the man who stole all the rest of your clothes.” 

A peal of laughter explodes from the Frank, a bright and unexpected sound in the darkness. Yusuf’s heart thumps in surprise; he’s never heard the other man laugh before. It hadn’t occurred to him that he _could._

“The man who stole my clothes,” he echoes, his eyes darting to Yusuf’s face before he scrubs his hands over his head, as if trying to shake loose a thought. 

Is he _blushing?_

Yusuf sits up, abandoning the pretense of trying to fall asleep. “Did this man steal your beard and hair as well, when he robbed you blind? Or did you do that to yourself in a battle-induced fit?” 

Nicky absently tugs his short hair and murmurs nonsense: “I saw a barber in Singapore named Hui Min.”

Their conversation during the journey so far has been terse, practical, and nothing of consequence. Since the long day at the spring hollow, they haven’t spoken of al-Quds, or the stable, or of how the Frank slaughtered a half dozen of his own people while wearing nothing but the skin Allah gave him. Earlier on that terrible day, the first time they killed each other, the Frank had been wide-eyed with fear and determination. He fought passably well - better with a crossbow than a sword - but Yusuf would not have called him a warrior. 

The naked man in the stable was something else entirely. Yusuf recognized him even without his greasy beard and hair, but somehow when he was shaved and unclothed he fought with the terrifying speed and skill of a man possessed by an ifrit of the jinn. It is said that madness follows such possession, and perhaps that explains Nicky’s behavior since that day. His distraction and occasional fluster; the way Yusuf often catches him staring; the way he keeps his lips pursed, like a man always swallowing something bitter. 

For all that, he hasn’t been violent again. In fact, he’s been so docile that Yusuf finds it almost as unsettling as the casual slaughter. This is not to say that Nicky isn’t dangerous; he is undeniably a creature with claws and bite, but of the sort that prefers to lounge in the afternoon shade of a sycamore. For some reason, he takes it for granted that Yusuf belongs in the shade beside him. The way he unconsciously orients himself near Yusuf all the time, Yusuf is beginning to feel like the sycamore itself. 

“We turned north today,” Nicky says. Actually, Yusuf took a right turn at a certain point, and the other man followed without registering an opinion. There hasn’t been any discussion of their route. “Are we going to al-Arish? I thought we were going to Cairo.”

“What business is it of yours, the route I take home?” In fact, Yusuf _was_ supposed to go to Cairo after al-Quds, a linchpin stop in the merchant trade he’s conducting on behalf of his father’s business. There will be hell to pay when he lands in Mahdia, for all of the partners he has neglected, the political contacts he does not manage, and the goods he does not bring. In his father’s eyes, getting caught up in a siege won’t be sufficient excuse for shirking his duties. But how is he supposed to leave a massacre like the one in al-Quds and walk right into the business of greasing palms, bowing to al-Mustaʽli Billah, and buying silks and spices? He still sees so many dead, when he closes his eyes.

How Nicky knows about Yusuf’s originally planned route through Cairo - _that’s_ another issue. Yusuf hasn’t breathed a word about it since they met, and he adds this item to the very long, suspicious list titled _Things This Fucking Frank Shouldn’t Know_. 

Nicky’s eyes find his again, bright and full of worry. “In my … dreams … we went through Cairo first. We met people there.” The word _people_ is a heavy one, pregnant with significance. 

“You are a prophet? These dreams of yours tell the future?” He snorts. “If you want to go to Cairo to meet your people, then go. I will dance with joy to see your back.”

“I know you’ve dreamt of them! Two women, and both of them like us - they can’t die, either.” The Frank leans forward, gesturing vaguely westward. “They are waiting for us in Cairo.”

“What do you know of my dreams?” he spits out reflexively. “What makes you think these women are like us?”

“They must be,” Nicky replies. “Otherwise, why would we dream of them, the same way we dreamt of each other?”

Yusuf stares at him, and at the desperate expression he cannot - or will not - hide. In his mind, Yusuf pulls up another data column he has maintained for at least half his life, since the day Genova’s war fleet sailed into Mahdia to burn and pillage: _Reasons Genovese Motherfuckers Can Never Be Trusted_. 

“I don’t blame you for lying. You can’t help it. It’s in your blood,” he says, chest tight and aching with the idea that this man thinks him so simple. “I do blame you for lying so _badly_.”

“I’m not lying! I never lie to you!” 

“In my dreams, the women are on a ship, _not_ in Cairo. You are no prophet, Frank. You are a Genovese spy, and you’re trying to lure me to Cairo for reasons Allah himself only knows. How many of your countrymen wait there, to ambush me?”

Nicky’s eyes go wide and his lips go slack as he processes this accusation. He makes a soft, despairing sound and buries his face in his hands. “This is impossible. This whole situation is ridiculous!” 

In a flash he’s on his feet. Yusuf instinctively reaches for his scimitar, but Nicky doesn’t lunge across the fire or go for a weapon. Instead, he begins pacing back and forth, gesticulating emphatically as he rants. It is the most Genovese he’s looked in the entire time Yusuf has known him. 

“What am I supposed to do? How do I walk the same path twice? By placing my steps directly in the footprints I left before? We couldn’t even talk to each other then. I thought it would be better this time, but perhaps it was simpler that way, when we had to teach each other to speak.” As he grows more agitated, his language shifts into something Yusuf can’t fully follow, a mishmash of Arabic and Greek and darija and other words that don’t sound like anything he’s ever heard before - not even Ligurian. Yusuf only vaguely catches his meaning as he talks about being forced to choose between members of his family, and how he’ll only ever choose Yusuf. He slaps the bloody, filthy tunic on his own chest and whinges about how much he misses tea from Nairobi and linen shirts from Kyoto - city-states located inland of Genova, maybe? Fuck if Yusuf knows. 

(A quiet voice whispers that perhaps Nicky is not really ranting about the tea and clothes, but something else entirely. Yusuf pointedly ignores it.)

When he has unwound himself like a spinning top, his arms fall to his sides. He regards Yusuf with a desperate tenderness that no one, except perhaps his own mother, has ever shown him. “I don’t know how to do this without you.”

Yusuf’s fist has gone slack on the hilt of his sword. His words are sharp enough: “And yet I can easily do without you.”

That _look_. That stupid, misty-eyed look. Yusuf hates that look, filled with inexplicable hurt - a look that Nicky didn’t wear even when he was _getting stabbed to death_. As though Yusuf weren’t the one being trailed by a madman who spoke in strange tongues and talked about prophetic dreams and _choosing between family_. As though there were anything of choice between them at all. 

Nicky swallows, his eyes turning down at last. “I know you could. You were always the stronger of us.”

“Good.” Feeling uncomfortable, Yusuf carefully eases the scimitar back down.

“But -” and then that look again. “But I would ask to stay with you anyway.”

 _It is not good for us to be alone_.

The worst part is that Yusuf has the horrible growing suspicion that whatever devious plan the Frank has is working. A few months on the road, a few months of plaintive eyes and sharing a fire and _call me Nicky_ , and Yusuf won’t see the danger coming until it is too late. _Al-Tayyib_ , laughs the voice of a long-ago classmate in the madrasa. _Always seeing the best in the world._

Well, _al-Tayyib_ or no, Yusuf has seen and done far too many things in his life to be _pure_. And he owes it to himself and all of the fallen behind him not to be _soft_. 

“Follow me or not as you wish,” Yusuf grunts, turning over onto his back and pointedly looking up at the stars. “I am not your keeper.” 

He is half certain there will be a reply of some other impossible nonsense, but all he hears is the shuffling of gravel as Nicky settles back down to watch. 

Which leaves Yusuf some time to think.

They might as well stop in al-Arish - a change of horses would be no bad thing. Travelling through Fatimid land carries a certain degree of risk; a merchant’s son who deals in smiles and coins is one thing, an armed Frank and a mysteriously untouched Muslim riding from al-Quds are quite another. But buying passage on a westward-bound ship would be difficult as things stood now. It would be far easier to go to Cairo or Alexandria where the name _al-Kaysani_ held weight with merchants and lenders. As uncertain as their fates would be under the Musta'li, their welcome among the Seljuqs is even less certain. 

But then there is the strange presence of Nicky’s _people_. Who are apparently awaiting them both in Cairo.

Yusuf sighs, closing his eyes. Al-Arish first. A change of horses. A proper bath. A masjid, hopefully, where he can at least try to center himself in the foreign wilderness his life has become. 

Perhaps his mad traveling companion will manage to lose himself along the way.

* * *

Dawn breaks upon the camp with neither of them having rested any better in the night. While Yusuf was sleeping, Nicky had somehow contrived to edge his way around the banked ashes, planting himself uncomfortably close to Yusuf’s feet as though waiting for his chance to pounce. Yusuf had woken from a particularly unpleasant nightmare only to find that thrice-damned face staring back at him, a foolish little smile on those lips. And then he had the nerve to _apologize_ for getting so close, as though Nicky truly hadn’t noticed sitting down a little closer each time he stood up to walk the perimeter. Yusuf will not - he will _not_ \- resort to childish measures like drawing a line in the sand, but the next time the Frank invades his space Yusuf is going to remind him what the sharp end of the scimitar is for.

Sore muscles and the beginnings of a truly grim mood see them off for the day. Yusuf makes no mention of his plans, and there are no further inquiries about their direction.

“Tell me about your dreams.” The sound of Nicky’s voice is startling in the silence. 

“Why should I?” Yusuf answers shortly. “I thought you were privy to all of them.” 

“You proved me wrong. You said that you dreamt of the two women, and that they were on a ship. What else do you see?”

Yusuf lets the silence stretch for a moment as he thinks. It’s not as if these particular dreams can _harm_ anyone, he decides reluctantly. No one will accuse a man of spying if he has dreams about two beautiful women. And there is no reason to provoke Nicky into another bizarre rant by refusing to speak. 

“Dark hair,” he says slowly. “They both wear it long, tied back in a style I don’t recognize. Plain clothes, without much jewelry - I don’t think they are commoners, but they don’t seem like rulers to me. I don’t know where they come from - perhaps further to the east than I have ever been. I almost never see them in the same place twice. Sometimes I see them in battle - they often have weapons.”

“An axe.” That foolish little smile is back on Nicky’s face again. “ _Λάβρυς._ A double-headed axe, and a recurve bow.” 

_Things This Fucking Frank Shouldn’t Know_. Yusuf stiffens. “You said you had this dream. Why don’t you tell me about them, if you know so much?” 

“Apparently my dreams are out of date.” For some reason this seems to amuse Nicky. “When I had this dream, the women were traveling by horse over land.” The amusement fades. “Did you see anything of the ship they were taking? Any banners or symbols?”

“No,” Yusuf says, growing more uneasy by the minute. Apparently he had been wrong about the harmlessness of these dreams. “Only brief images of their faces, with the sea all around them on a wooden deck. Why?”

“The sea can be perilous. You are sure that you saw them together?”

“They are dreams - what does it matter?” Yusuf snorts. “Is one of them your sister? Or your wife? If so, it would surely be wisest to leave me in peace so you can pursue her.” 

“But they _were_ together?” Nicky presses, oddly urgent. “They were safe? Happy?”

Yusuf huffs out a sigh. “Yes. When I see them in my dreams, they are always together.” He ponders further. “They do seem happy. If you are seeking a lost wife, then I must tell you she does not prefer the company of men.” 

Nicky’s shoulders relax, relief washing across his face. “I can assure you I’m not seeking a wife.” 

“Good. I pity the woman who has to share your bed. You have been following _me_ for only a few days, and already your company is tiresome.” 

The silence behind him tells Yusuf that he landed a blow, but he can’t tell where. It is a moment before Nicky speaks again. 

“If you are worried that an ambush awaits us in Cairo, you need not fear. I only thought … that because of my dreams, we would find the two women there.”

“And I’m supposed to trust the word of a madman?” Yusuf nudges the dun mare forward, moving ahead of Nicky’s rangy cavalry mount. “I don’t even know if the two women are real. Whereas you Genovese with your crossbows and your swords are real enough.” 

He keeps his heels in the mare’s side, because he’s tired of looking at that _face,_ with its ridiculous nose and patchy, half-grown beard. Those eyes that see too much; the pale cheeks that never burn under the unrelenting sun and yet blush so easily; the lips that curl into subtle, crooked grins. But of all these terrible traits, the worst part of Nicky are his broad shoulders that bear so easily - so _casually_ \- this new and terrifying reality that both of them are fundamentally unnatural, because neither of them can die. 

The Frank spurs his horse alongside, pulling parallel. Yusuf’s eyes stay stubbornly fixed on the horizon, something coiling tight in his stomach as their mounts match in perfect stride, falling into easy rhythm beside each other. 

_Fucking Nicky_ , he thinks.


	8. 1099

Sometimes, Nicky and Joe don’t make love for weeks or months on end. Once, they went through a six-year dry spell. It happens because they’re angry with each other (even though there is always forgiveness in the end); it happens because they’re bored (after all, what is a body when you’ve had the same one for dozens of lifetimes); it happens because life has wrung them dry (witnessing humanity’s horrors occasionally makes any kind of pleasure feel like sin). 

Most commonly when it happens, though, abstinence is a game between them: who can hold out the longest, who will break first. Nicky fancies himself quite good at this particular game; he’s a sniper, he’s practiced in choosing his mark and being patient. Over the centuries, he’s accumulated the tally-marks in his victory column to prove it. 

During this game, when Joe’s about to break, there’s an exquisite telltale exasperation in his demeanor that puts Nicky in mind of an under-stimulated tiger in a zoo. He’s evasive and grumpy as hell as he claws for the last threads of his willpower. In short order - a week at most - Nicky is laughing as Joe pins him to the floor of the _pensoe_ , or the trunk of a Siberian larch, or on one particularly memorable occasion, the alley behind the Globe Theater in 1609, during Act IV of _Hamlet_. 

No matter the reason for these dry spells, Nicky and Joe never, ever deprive each other of the comfort of simple touch. Fingers pressed into the lower back, a bump of the hip as they walk side-by-side, or a foot hooked around the other person’s ankle beneath a cafe table. Even during their most contentious disagreements, they hold hands while they argue, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms after they exhaust themselves bickering. 

After nine hundred-odd years, Nicky had forgotten what it was like to exist without Joe’s body within constant reach. Sure, the two of them occasionally separate during missions, or when Joe and Booker make their pilgrimage to the World Cup every four years. Nicky usually spends that week with Andy, the two of them touring museums on a lark just to slip handwritten corrective notes into the artifact labels, and then glutting themselves on local food and drink before he plays wingman so she can pick up various someones to keep her entertained in the evenings. 

But a hundred or more wars have not managed to permanently separate Nicky and Joe for any serious length of time. They’ve had a few close calls here and there, but nothing they didn’t eventually manage. While Nicky is too aware of life’s fragility to imagine them immune to something like Quỳnh’s horrific fate, he has perhaps grown a bit _complacent_. 

Since they left Jerusalem, the two of them have been scrounging for food, collecting zahroor berries and nabug fruits when they can. Nicky is so hungry, he spends at least half of each day thinking about the leftover boxes of lo mein in the fridge in San Francisco, the last proper meal he ate. For all the desert torment of near-fasting and thirst, the ravenous ache he feels at having Joe so near and yet still completely out of reach is vastly more painful. The sensation is a raw wound, like he’s had half his skin scraped off. He’s a patient man - so good at winning abstinence games - but this situation is something else entirely. 

Right now, Yusuf properly _loathes_ him. The last time Nicky lived through this series of events, the two of them stumbled together into a relationship over the course of several years. He’s probably strong enough to last all those years without ever touching Joe, if he has to. 

But none of this begins to address the _enormous_ assumption that he can even convince Joe to fall in love with him again. They are fated to be together, he has no doubt, but the actual _how_ of it leaves him in a perpetual state of mild panic. Everything happens for a reason, and yet this particular catastrophe he’s tumbled into is a whole other fucking level of preordained cosmic reasoning that has him grasping with his fingertips, desperate for a handhold. 

When they crest the last desert hill to al-Arish, this is Nicky’s state of mind: starved of food and touch, and vibrating with low-level panic. The small city spreads out against the coastline beneath them. Squat lime-washed buildings huddle around an already ancient fort, and the harbor consists of only a few long jetties that jut out into the sea. 

Yusuf reins to a stop, shading his eyes as he squints at the view. He then turns in his saddle and squints at Nicky. Casually, as if this is a thing they have discussed and agreed on already, he says, “I’m going to tie you up now.”

Nicky coughs in surprise, which goes on longer than it should because his throat is so dry. By the time he’s done, Yusuf’s left eyebrow has risen nearly to his hairline. He rasps, “You what?”

“This city is under Fatimid control, and if you ride in looking like” - he waves vaguely, lip curling at Nicky’s general state of existence - “they will haul you into the fort, tie each of your four limbs to a camel, and rip you to pieces. I probably won’t be treated much better, with you as my traveling companion. But if you are my prisoner, and I am transporting you back to Mahdia to hold for ransom to your rich Genovese family, that is another matter.” He pauses, thoughtfully sucking air through his teeth. “Do you suppose we could survive being drawn and quartered?”

Nicky knows the answer to this question, but it seems imprudent to answer. He clamps his lips shut as his eyes widen.

Yusuf reaches to the back of his saddle for his coil of makeshift rope. He’d spent last night in camp meticulously gathering and braiding together switches from mirr shrubs, and he refused to answer when Nicky asked what it was for. He’s been planning this for at least a full day, and didn’t bother to mention it.

“So as I said, I am going to tie you up now,” Yusuf repeats, uncoiling the mirr rope. “Give me your hands.”

Without conscious thought, Nicky’s hands thrust themselves forward.

There is a long, disbelieving pause. 

“Should I dismount first?” 

“You are …” Yusuf takes a deep breath. “You are fine with this? Just like that?”

“What is there to doubt?” Nicky’s heart, which has been quietly bleeding since the stable in Jerusalem, is now hammering frantically against his ribs. He is about to agree to something that might endanger them both, but the rising tide of emotion within him drowns out everything else. “It’s a good plan, with good reasons.”

Yusuf goggles at him. “You don’t care. You truly do not care that you are about to ride _bound_ into a town full of enemies.”

“I trust you.”

Several different expressions flit over Yusuf’s face - incredulity, suspicion, exasperation. “Everyone in town will see you captive! You’ll have to keep your head down and obey me - no more raving, no more murder sprees. I won’t be able to free your hands where people can see. If you don’t think you can handle that, you should leave now.” Yusuf gestures expansively at the coast. “Last chance.” 

The fervent thumping behind his ribs is growing, a heady lightness swimming around him like bubbles in a glass. The beginnings of a foolish grin are threatening to break out onto his face. “I don’t need it. I have you.” 

Yusuf swears, something about _ridiculous Franks_ under his breath. But after a few moments of Nicky visibly not fleeing, Yusuf nudges his horse forward. “Do you have any more weapons on you?”

“All in the saddlebag.” Nicky wills his breathing to slow, remaining absolutely still as Yusuf comes closer. 

Yusuf hesitates, then impatiently shakes his head and takes both of Nicky’s wrists in his hand. 

Oh. _Oh_. 

He must have made a sound. The first touch of skin on skin feels like lightning, like _not enough_ , like the most tantalizing glimpse of priceless joy that Nicky will be longing for the rest of his life. _Joe would say it better,_ Nicky thinks wildly, as the makeshift rope is wound around his wrists. This is what poems are written for, surely - the touch of the beloved, like rain on the dust of the desert. How could he have forgotten, how beautiful these hands are? How dexterous and gentle, meant for so much more than war? 

Yusuf is deliberately avoiding his eyes. His hands are almost - _almost_ \- steady, and Nicky wants to lose himself in that slight tremor, that glimmer of light under the door that could mean heaven or hell. He clears his throat instead. 

“It would be better if you wound it double.”

“What?” Yusuf glances up irritably from where he is trying to tighten a knot. 

“It would be better if ... never mind. Here.” Nicky wiggles his wrists. “Would you mind starting over?” 

“Reconsidering your last chance to get away?” Yusuf snaps. 

“Never. But it would be more secure if you use another method.”

“Remind me why the fuck I’m listening to someone who is _supposed to be my prisoner?”_

“Only a suggestion!”

“You do realize that I am tying you up?” Yusuf waves the working end of the rope between them. “You do realize that you are going to have to take orders from me, not the other way around?” 

“Yes. And I would like to remain so as long as possible, and as safely as possible.” Nicky twists his wrists again, demonstrating the loose space. “You don’t want people to think I might escape, do you?”

“How would you know what people think? I don’t recall your army taking many prisoners!”

“I have ... other experience, in this area.” 

“Of course you do.” Yusuf mutters, unwinding the rope around Nicky’s wrists. “Fine. Show me your magical knot.”

The foolish grin is threatening again. Nicky holds his wrists back out. “Here. Hold the rope in the middle, so that half falls on either side - just like that. Then wind the double rope around my wrists and pull the ends through the loop. Don’t pull it tight yet.” 

Yusuf pulls the working ends through the bight, careful to touch as little bare skin as possible. “How is this more secure?”

“It will be, I promise. Two more turns around, then pull the ends of the rope through the first loop - no, the place where you pinched - there. Then around the space between my wrists - tighter - and leave the ends dangling. Put them over the middle into the new loop, and you have the lead. See?” Nicky tugs on the rope cuffs gently, feeling the tension. “ _Va bene_.” 

Yusuf stares at the lead in his hand. He pulls carefully on the short length, watching as Nicky leans in the saddle to balance. “I don’t. I don’t think. I can’t hold this in my hand the whole time.”

“You can tie the lead to the saddle. But it would have to be high, away from my fingers. I might untie the knot behind your back.”

“And would you?” Eyes on his, searching, full of unnameable things. “Run away, behind my back?” 

Nicky flexes his wrists pointedly. “I am exactly where I want to be.” 

“You are truly, utterly impossible.” Yusuf sits back. “You’ll notice that I don’t have enough rope for your feet.” 

“You could tie the lead to _your_ horse, and I could walk.” Nicky casts a critical eye over the cuffs. “But I don’t think we have enough rope for that, either.”

“I’m not dragging you behind the horse, I’m not a savage.” Yusuf shoves the rope ends impatiently around the pommel of Nicky’s saddle, yanking the knot tight under his wrists. “I’m just a very foolish man, apparently. Wandering the Sinai with an _absolute mad lunatic_. Who likes getting tied up.” 

Nicky knows he is acting unhinged, but he can’t help it. The wave of emotion in his chest is rising, cresting, breaking down and flooding his entire being with the most incredible sense of happiness. He is smiling like an idiot. He wants to dance. 

Yusuf, meanwhile, is glaring daggers. “Wipe that stupid grin off your face. We’re going to be stuck like this for a while.”

“Okay.” He wants to _sing._

“I’m going to sell all your daggers in al-Arish. And buy more rope.”

“Okay.” What songs does he remember in the old tongues? There were some beautiful ones.

“And stop making that _sound_ at me, I know you can at least try to speak Arabic. I’m the one who has you, not the other way around.” 

“Of course.” Nicky beams at Yusuf. “You have me.” 

Yusuf’s face flushes several shades of red. He turns around in determined dismissal. “I’m selling your horse too.” 

Nicky is hungry and tired and dirty, and the sky is so incredibly blue and the sun is shining, and Yusuf is _taking the reins of his horse_ so they can ride together into al-Arish. Yusuf wants him there. Yusuf wants to keep him close. The mirr against his skin, growing itchier with every moment, is positive, tangible proof. 

_You have me. You have me. You have me._


	9. 2021

“What the hell is up with his hair?” Andy crosses her arms, leaning against the wall. Joe perches on the arm of the couch, his attention fixed through the open kitchen door. The black rock rests on the counter beside the toaster, a spiderweb of cracks in one side of its bulletproof case. Joe has no idea when the damage happened - did Nicky somehow do that last night before they showered and went to bed? Did it happen spontaneously while they were sleeping? 

It might not matter, but he can’t stop wondering.

In the middle of the kitchen, visible through the door, Nile sits at the table with Nicolò. He’s clean, at least, and wearing normal clothes. He didn’t manage to align the buttons, so his oxford is askew. Damp hair hangs to his shoulders and his scraggly beard has been brushed. Both of them are conducting investigations: Nile is researching the rock using a laptop and her cell; Nicolò is skeptically inspecting the box of cold lo mein they gave him, the only food in the safehouse - at least until the grocery delivery arrives. 

“No idea, boss. He woke up looking like that. Maybe it’s, I don’t know, something to do with the healing process gone into overdrive?” He doesn’t say the obvious aloud: There isn’t a single doctor on the planet who could examine Nicolò and say for sure. They’ve never _needed_ doctors before. Joe rubs his eyes - how is he this exhausted when it isn’t even noon yet? “That wouldn’t explain his memories, though.” 

Nicolò fiddles with the fork in obvious bafflement before wrinkling his nose and putting it back on the table again. Then he plucks a noodle from the box with his bare fingers and licks it, shooting a glance at Joe as if looking for a giveaway that he’s been poisoned, before eating in earnest. He isn’t being sloppy, dexterously folding the noodles before placing them on his tongue, but he also definitely isn’t using utensils.

Nile looks up from her screen. Her soft “ _Shit_ , man” drifts clearly across the room.

“Have you tried showing him your sketchbook?” Andy murmurs.

“I got a new sketchbook in Singapore. I didn’t bring the other,” Joe replies, staring in fascinated horror. “There are probably some old ones around the house, though. I filled up at least a couple when we were here a few times ago. During the - uh, was it the World’s Fair?” 

“1905?” Andy can’t take her eyes off of Nicolò either. 

“1914 maybe, right before we joined you in France,” Joe says. “They’re probably in a closet. I should look for them.”

“You should.” Neither of them move, too transfixed by the scene in the kitchen. 

Nicolò’s gaze has settled decisively on Nile. He finishes chewing a mouthful of noodles and then clears his throat. “ _Mi scûsa, signora._ ”

She stops pretending to look at her screen and turns her full attention to him. Her eyebrows rise as he wipes his fingertips on his jeans, leaving little spots of sauce behind. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a necklace - a chunky but simple pewter cross. Eyes shining, he leans forward with it in his hand and gestures at the matching gold cross around Nile’s neck. 

“ _È una bèlla crôxe_.”

“ _Grazie_ ,” she replies, because Nicky has been teaching her Italian, and even though this version of his words sound a little strange, she gets the gist. “That one you’ve got is new, right?”

He shoots a furtive look at Joe and Andy and then, obviously hopeful at her use of a word he recognizes, unleashes a low, serious flood of old Ligurian at her. 

Nile shakes her head, eyes wide. “Sorry, you haven’t taught me that phrase yet.”

“He’s asking where to find a priest who will take his confession,” Joe translates loud enough to be heard from the other room, absently tugging his beard through his knuckles. “He’s uh. He’s worried about some things he thinks he did yesterday.”

“Nicky, you know I’m Baptist.” Even though he can’t understand Nile’s words, Nicolò grasps that she can’t help. His face turns crestfallen, and on impulse she reaches for his hand, squeezing and whispering, “It’s gonna be okay.” Then, louder to the others, “What things is he worried about?”

“If he believes yesterday was the fall of Jerusalem,” Andy says, “then he was on the side that did the ethnic cleansing.”

“Oh.” Nile’s hold on Nicolò’s hand tightens. The tendons in his arm stand out as he squeezes back, like a man gripping a lifeboat. “Hey, if you want a priest, we’ll find you a priest. Right, Joe?”

“Not an operationally sound move, if he’s intending to walk into that confessional and talk about participating in or witnessing mass murder - even if it’s in a different language, and it happened a thousand years ago,” Andy replies. She comes into the kitchen and pulls a spare chair beside him, rubbing his shoulder. It’s a gesture of comfort, but he stiffens in alarm like a rabbit in front of a fox. 

In broken ancient Ligurian, Andy says, “No church, Nico. Not today. Danger.”

He lets out a shaky breath, his face twisting in a complicated series of emotions - shame, panic, disappointment - obviously unsure of how to process the sympathy from the women surrounding him. 

Alone in the living room, Joe mumbles to no one in particular, “I’m going to find those sketchbooks.” 

Soon he’s elbows-deep in one of the second floor bedroom closets; he distinctly remembers having sex with Nicky in this room at least once, long enough ago that there were suspenders and sock garters involved, so it seems like a reasonable place to start. As he throws old clothes onto the bed, moth-eaten three-piece suits from the 1910s and dusty orange tights from the 1970s, Nicolò steps through the doorway. 

Joe can _feel_ his silent presence without turning around, the way sunlight hits skin when a curtain wafts open in the breeze. He closes his eyes and rests his hand on the shelf he was reaching for; beneath his fingers, as if on cue, is a pile of old sketchbooks. 

“Joe?” 

“Yeah.” His voice croaks a little, probably from the dust. He pulls the notebooks from the shelf and turns around. Behind Nicolò in the dark corridor, Andy’s shadow melts away downstairs, leaving them alone now that she’s sure he’s not planning to leap out a window again. 

“I worried that you had left,” Nicolò says, his eyes a little bit wide, as if he has surprised himself.

“You’re safe with Andy and Nile, even if I had,” Joe replies.

“Mmhm.” It’s a skeptical sound. He steps into the room, surveying the hodgepodge furniture and tattered linens. “This is your house?”

“It’s ours.” He gestures to Nicolò, ending with a vague wave that incorporates the people downstairs. Journal in hand, he comes to sit at the end of the bed and watches the other man reach for the switch on the wall and experimentally flip it on and off a few times, a procedure he witnessed Andy perform with no small interest before he ate. 

A line forms between his eyebrows as the overhead light flickers with the switch. “Yesterday you said this is the year two thousand twenty-one. That wasn’t a lie?”

“I never lie to you,” Joe replies gravely. 

“It has been …” Nicolò squints, then lifts his fingers and begins to count.

“Nine hundred twenty-two years since the fall of Jerusalem,” Joe finishes for him. They might not be able to die of old age, but Joe _would_ like to get something else done this month besides watch him struggle with math.

“For you,” he says, “but not for me.”

“It’s been nine hundred twenty-two years for you, too.” 

“How?” Nicolò leaves the light on and rubs his hand, obviously unsure where to put his hands. “Is it because of what we are?”

“The years, yes. We don’t age normally. Your memories - no.” Joe rubs the worn paper between his fingers. “I’m not sure how that happened.” 

“You keep saying ‘we.’” Nicolò gestures between them. “As though we didn’t kill each other the first day we met. You have known me for all that time?”

 _Biblically_. Joe laughs, or tries to. “I have. And we did. We killed each other ... I can’t remember how many times. It seemed like forever, although looking back it was no time at all.” Joe lifts the first sketchbook and nods at the other corner of the bed. “Here. I can show you.”

Nicolò hesitates.

The thing he has to remember, Joe thinks, ignoring the lump in his throat, is that this _isn’t about him_. Whatever happened to Nicky last night threw everything off - body and mind. He doesn’t remember Nile or Andy. He doesn’t remember how electricity works. He doesn’t remember any of his languages. It isn’t going to help anyone if Joe just sits here crying about how Nicky doesn’t want to be near him anymore.

Even if it _really fucking hurts_. 

Joe musters up a smile as Nicolò tentatively sits down. He opens the sketchbook, flipping to a random page. “This was sometimes around the year 1914. We were here together, in San Francisco.”

Nicolò’s eyes widen. 

It’s a good likeness, if Joe does say so himself. Nicky, hair whipping in the wind, smiles up from the page as an airplane passes behind his head. Joe can feel his own memories coming back - the exposition had ranged from amusing to odd to downright horrifying, but both of them had been thrilled by the stunt pilot flying loops over San Francisco Bay. He is never quite satisfied with his finished work, but Nicky’s eyes as they capture the light are something he is proud of. 

“This …” Nicolò reaches out to take the book gingerly in his hands. “Is this ... me?”

“Yeah.” Joe reaches out and turns a yellowing page. “My favorite muse.”

More sketches - a brass trumpet, the Tower of Jewels, a woman selling sweets from a cart. Joe remembers wearing several pencils to stubs, trying to make the most of every moment before rejoining Andy on the war front. And everywhere, on every page - Nicky. Nicky smiling at a child, Nicky frowning at a display, Nicky bending over a book in quiet concentration. Nicky, tangled bare in the sheets, head thrown back in familiar ecstasy - 

Nicolò’s face goes red. Joe fights the sudden bizarre urge to snatch the sketchbook back. It isn’t as if he were showing this to a stranger, after all. He begrudges every single moment of his life where he was forced to hide what Nicky is to him. Joe certainly won’t hide it from the man himself. 

“When I woke up,” Nicolò says hesitantly, “you were holding me.” 

“I was.”

“And earlier.” Nicolò stares down at the sketch, then at Joe. “You said that we have known each other for a long time.”

“Almost a millennia.”

“Then somehow, since Jerusalem …” Nicolò struggles with the words, fingers bending the pages in his hands. “Somehow, you and I became … we were ...”

“Together?” 

Such a small word. Such a small word, to describe his soul and his sky and the air in his lungs. Joe takes a deep breath. “Enemies, brothers-in-arms, lovers. Every way that two souls can be joined. Yes, we were together.” 

“Lovers?” Nicolò barks out an ugly, disbelieving laugh. “Us? You do know that our people hate each other?” 

“I’m not saying it was easy.” Joe leans forward. “It was difficult, and it took time. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

Grey eyes are riveted to his - that familiar sharp gaze, laying bare all the hidden secrets of the world. Joe holds his breath. 

The bed isn’t long. They are so close, so close it would be no effort at all to reach out and take Nicolò’s hand, to kiss him the way he did last night - only a few hours and an age of the earth ago. Maybe that’s all he needs to do, to bring the memories back. _True love’s kiss_ , Joe thinks to himself dizzily, as he watches his own hand reach carefully over the sketchbook to cover Nicolò’s. _When true love’s kiss the spell shall break ..._

Nicolò wrenches his hand away. The bed jolts as he jumps up, sending the sketchbook tumbling to the floor. He looks at Joe a single moment - memory, fear, anger, Joe can’t tell - then turns suddenly and rushes out of the room. The thump of his bare feet fades quickly down the stairs.

“Joe?” Andy’s voice calls distantly. “You alright?”

Joe has to wait a few moments before he can croak out a reply. “I’m okay. Don’t worry.” 

He slides off the bed and onto the floor, leaning back against the frame. Maybe he’ll just sit here. For a while. Maybe in a hundred years, his heart will feel a little less like breaking.

* * *

“I found something!” Nile says as Joe trudges heavily down the stairs. “It looks like bad news, though.” 

“Where’s Nicolò?” 

“He rushed down into the bathroom a while ago.” Andy gestures at the still-closed door from her seat on the couch. “I didn’t hear anything from inside - he might have just fallen asleep, from the looks of him.” She yawns. “Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

“Guys!” Nile says impatiently.

“Sorry.” Joe rubs at his eyes. “Thank you, Nile. What did you find?”

“We’ve been focusing all our attention on this rock, right?” Nile gestures. “But that was a dead end. It wasn’t in that first file from Copley, the one that said this was about organ harvesting.”

“We didn’t expect to find it at all.” Joe looks over - for some reason Nile has closed the case, the intact top lid resting on the cracked bottom half. “It was the only thing in the bunker, besides the kids.” 

“The rock might be a dead end, but the case isn’t.” Nile points to a tiny symbol on the corner, almost obscured by a crack - a circle, with three stars inside. “This? Is the logo for a company that builds _radiation shielding_. And not in little boxes either.” Nile turns the laptop to face them, images of tall grey walls filling the screen. “VGL builds power plants. Which means this box was made special for whatever that thing is.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not radioactive!” Andy yells from across the room. “Trust me, after one good dose you know what radiation poisoning feels like.” 

“How about you stay on that side of the room until we know for sure?” Nile yells back. 

Andy leans back, closing her eyes. “It always comes down to the same thing. We hunt down the guy at the top and force him to give us answers. Why is this any different?” 

“Because until we know what happened to Nicky, we shouldn’t be doing anything.” Nile gives the box a nervous look. “Anyway, we don’t have to hunt him down. He was taken into custody last night. He’s probably in lockup somewhere, we’ve just got to find the records.”

Joe collapses on the couch beside Andy. In an easy movement, she hooks her arm through his bent elbow. The contact is a cold compress to his fevered soul. He leans into her shoulder, as solid and steady as a mountain. 

“He’s rich, right?” Andy says. 

“Yeah, a tech guy. From the news profiles, he’s into some serious Tony Stark-type shit,” Nile replies. “Weapons and stuff, but also crazy science projects.”

“If he’s rich, he isn’t in lockup. He’s got a fleet of lawyers; he’s probably on a yacht somewhere by now.” Andy tips her head back against the wall, settling in. “Maybe they put an ankle monitor on him, or something. We’ll find him.”

Nile’s gaze moves from Andy to Joe. Her dark eyes brim with worry, her jaw set in a determined line that he’s come to recognize as the warning sign that she’s about to do something impulsive - probably foolish.

In a decisive movement, she snaps shut the lid of her laptop and stalks across the room, flopping beside Joe on the couch and resting her head on his other shoulder. “You’re right. We’ll find him.”


	10. 2021

Nicolò makes short work of the first-floor bathroom window, prising it open and wiggling his way into the alley behind the house. He stands perfectly still, barefoot on the concrete. Regulating his breathing, he listens for a sign of alarm from inside.

There’s nothing.

Heart thumping, he glances up and down the alley and picks the most direct route to sunlight. He needs fresh air and room to think, and at this point he’d sell his worthless soul to literally anyone for a bottle of fucking wine. 

Instead, he gets a maze of strange stone streets and brightly colored buildings, with horseless wagons whizzing by at terrifying speeds. The air pulses with noise and pungent, unfamiliar smells. As he stands at the corner of the house and gazes across this terrifying world, he cannot help but think that even if this isn’t purgatory or hell, he has still undeniably been cursed. 

It would be worse, though, to go back inside the house and face those three strangers with their sad, sympathetic looks and their gentle kindness and _we were together_. Even the wolf-woman, Andy, has turned soft toward him. 

Nicolò hates it. 

He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t _want_ it. 

It would be easier if they were angry. He’d prefer punishment and vengeance, or at least a simple fight. He could understand that; it would make sense. He’s only tasted death a handful of times, and even with this new and frightening immortality, it seems preferable to the suffocating weight of forgiveness and acceptance offered here in this impossible, strange place.

He’d rather face eternity with a sword in his hands than face it in these soft clothes with his heart open, laid bare for all to see. 

Determined to get some distance, he walks down the side of the strange stone street, with its hard angles and fast wagons. He’s only half a block down when he catches sight of the cat. It looks exactly like the barn cat from his family villa - black and grey and grumpy. Sitting beside the door of another brightly colored house, it regards him with a slow, contemplative blink as he pulls to a stop and stares back in unexpected delight. 

Nine hundred and twenty-two years, and yet still tabby cats judge him on sight. 

On instinct, he reaches out a hand and makes a soft noise: “ _Pspsps?_ ”

The cat glares.

Nicolò draws closer. One at a time, infinitely careful, he climbs the steps. The cat doesn’t run. When his hand makes contact with the top of its head, it closes its eyes and leans into his touch. His stomach flutters with the timeless, inexplicable joy of being acknowledged by a strange cat. He sits on the step to stretch into the contact, his hand following the animal as it prances across the stoop. 

At least with this cat, Nicolò isn’t a disappointment. Not like he was a disappointment to Abbot Cassano at San Fruttuoso, after Nicolò’s father’s dying wish sent him to study for the priesthood. A logical life for the youngest noble son of three, and something that Nicolò has longed for since his earliest memory: a _calling_. 

Somehow Nicolò managed to fuck up that calling - to fuck _everything_ up. He fucked it up in the woods behind the abbey kitchens with Gianferro and also in the cloisters with Tomas. Abbot Cassano was happy to see his back when he left the abbey to crawl back to his family’s crumbling ancestral home. 

Just after his father’s death, Nicolò’s eldest brother Luciano married for lust, a vapid woman from a disreputable family who brought nothing to their already shabby noble family. It wasn’t as if their disintegrating name had anything to its credit at that point, anyway, but his mother was livid at the choice. His other brother Vincenti married for love - Agnesia, the middle sister of a middling family who brought a little reputation and a great deal of sense to her situation. If only Agnesia and Vincenti had been the head of the family instead of Luciano, perhaps their collective social and financial situation would not have cratered so spectacularly.

Nicolò has contemplated at great length what it might be like to fall in love with someone as magnificently as Vincenti fell in love with Agnesia, to devote his life to someone worthy and have a life devoted in return. Yet when Nicolò thinks of Gianferro and Tomas he can’t imagine such a thing. Not because they are men - he can’t see himself with anyone who _isn’t_ a man, no matter Abbot Cassano’s opinion on the subject - but because they don’t set his soul alight the same way Vincenti was set alight by Agnesia.

When Nicolò came crawling home from the abbey in disgrace, Agnesia was the one who welcomed him with open arms and arranged his introduction to Guglielmo Embriaco. She procured the funds from her own father to purchase his proper Balistai crossbow and send him to training. Without her, he never would have found his second calling and gone sailing on Il Testadimaglio’s mission to the Holy Land, to free it from the infidels. 

What a fucking disaster. 

Nicolò had imagined it a calling to holiness - a redemption from his failure at the abbey. Then he stood in the streets of a burning Jerusalem and watched his fellow Christian soldiers of all stripes commit atrocities that left him broken to his core, questioning his faith, his purpose, his existence, his _everything_. 

Now he has been snatched from that misery and placed here with _Joe_. Joe the Muslim, with his goddamned book full of lovingly-rendered drawings, supposed evidence of an existence Nicolò has only ever dreamed of. Evidence that he could be adored, that he might set someone else’s soul alight in the way Agnesia and Vincenti burn for each other - that such a relationship is even _possible_ for him. 

“Brrrp?” The cat nudges Nicolò’s wrist, insistent and unashamed in its need for attention. 

“That’s it,” Nicolò murmurs, stroking one soft cheek. “You know what you want. At least you know you’re asking for the right thing.”

The cat ignores his words with a supremely dignified purr. 

He can’t go back to the house. If he can’t go back, then he must go forward. He could try to find the church from this morning, but Joe knows to look for him there. The thought of confronting those sad brown eyes again fills Nicolò with an unnameable emotion he doesn’t want to contemplate. Besides, if he seeks out another church there might be Nile. Nile, with her kind hands and her golden cross.

No - if there are saints in this city, then there must surely be sinners. And if there are sinners, then there might just be space for a washed-up third son who has decent aim with a crossbow and an unfortunate taste for cock. 

And wine. _Please_ , dear God, let there be wine.

* * *

Whoever Saint Francisco was, Nicolò thinks irritably, he neglected to bless his city with any of the useful virtues.

The city is clearly huge. Nicolo has tried Sabir, which he speaks passably well, and Greek, which he speaks badly. He exchanged a few mutually incomprehensible oaths with a man in a horseless carriage who nearly ran him over while Nicolò was trying to cross the street. And yet there seems to be not _one single soul_ in the entire fucking place who can understand him, or make themselves understood.

In addition to their strange clothes, no one in the year two-thousand and twenty-one seems to carry a sword - even the gilded ceremonial kind. No armored guards, no belt knives, not even a staff - Saint Francisco must have been a determined pacifist. The beautifully clear glass windows on every side contain infinite collections of strange and intricate items, but Nicolò sees nothing resembling a market or a vendor’s stall. He had started down the nearest large street with the vague expectation that he would find _something_ familiar. But everything he sees just makes him feel more lost.

 _You fit perfectly in Joe’s arms last night,_ whispers a voice in his head. Nicolò pushes the thought firmly away. 

At last, he finds a fountain in what seems to be a central square. Little groups of people are gathered in the open air under the eaves of the surrounding buildings, talking and eating together. Nicolò is sharply reminded of his dry throat. The strangely spiced dish that Joe gave him earlier sated his immediate hunger, but sooner or later he will need to eat again. He has nothing that he can trade or sell for food, much less any idea of the coinage the city uses. 

And he _still_ hasn’t found a damn drink. 

The fountain rim is wide enough to provide a comfortable seat. Nicolò sits gratefully down and takes a long breath, reaching in to splash the water on his hot face and burning feet. It smells faintly metallic, but the spout bubbling cheerfully in the center seems clean enough. It’s not as though he can die. He leans over the surface of the water and cups his hand, lifting to take a sip.

“ _Hey!”_

Nicolò coughs on the mouthful, turning around.

Across the square, a short, middle-aged man is making his way authoritatively towards the fountain. He is wearing a stiff grey shirt with a black collar and a curious red symbol over his heart. There are several ominous looking boxes clipped to his belt, and his face is distinctly displeased. The man stops in front of Nicolò and says something, gesturing to the fountain. 

Nicolò tries to look polite. “Pardon me - I was trying to get a drink.”

The man frowns, then repeats himself. Loudly and slowly.

“I’m sorry, I don't understand. ” Nicolò says, struggling to keep the frustration from his face. “I thought this was a public fountain. I’m trying to find somewhere I can ask for directions.”

More words, in the same frustrated tone. Nicolò stands up - which seems to upset the man even more - holding out his hands. “I don’t have any money, but if there’s something I can do -“

The grey-shirted man steps forward and reaches with his hand. Nicolò flinches violently backwards, trips over the stone wall of the fountain, and falls into the water. 

Shouts and laughter greet him as he surfaces, spluttering. Most of the people who were eating around the square have turned to gawk. The grey-shirted man is leaning over the side and haranguing him, pointing at the street. Nicolò wipes a strand of soaked hair out of his face. 

_Fuck this_.

“Listen, why don’t you step back and _then_ I’ll get out?” He gestures in a shooing motion for good measure. “I’ve had enough of strangers punching me in the face for one day!” 

More yelling. Some bystanders are starting to drift closer, and Nicolò begins to get nervous. One man he could handle. A crowd …

“ _Wait!_ Wait, he’s with me!”

Brown curls. A familiar voice. A panicked face, pushing forward. 

_Joe._

* * *

_How the hell did he end up in a food court fountain?_

Joe weaves towards the security guard, pasting a wide determined smile on his face. “Sir, I am so, so sorry about this. He’s with me.”

“You know this guy?” The security guard turns to Joe skeptically.

“I’m, um. I’m … the interpreter. From the nonprofit.” Joe digs frantically through his pockets, finally managing to pull out a plastic ID card. “His social worker should be here any minute.”

“You don’t need to be here,” Nicolò says irritably, standing up in the water. He looks like a drowned cat. “I have things under control!”

“I’m trying to keep you from getting locked up!” Joe snaps back in Ligurian before turning back to the guard. “She’s right behind me. I don’t know how he walked so far, but thank you so much for finding him, Officer …” Joe checks the guard’s badge “... Officer Nielsen. I appreciate it.”

The guard harrumphs. “Your boy here was trying to drink chlorine water. Whatever meds he’s on, they aren’t working.” 

“We had a new manager who cleared him for an outside trip.” Andy, who had thankfully heard the cover story, stepped up smoothly beside him. “It won’t be happening again.” 

The smile is starting to feel a little manic. _Please, please don’t call the police …_

The guard dithers a little more, but is clearly on board with the idea of making Nicolò someone else’s problem. “Can you get him out of the fountain? We got kids here.”

“Right away.” Joe gives an inward sigh of relief and steps over to the fountain edge. “Nicolò!”

“I didn’t do anything!” Nicolò crosses his arms. “What did he say?”

Andy steps up beside Joe impatiently. “He say - _house_ , or _cage_?” 

“She means _prison,_ Nicolò.” Joe looks around - the excitement is dying down, but there are still a fair number of eyes on them. “Please. Let’s not do this here.”

“Sure,” mutters Andy under her breath, eyeing the plastic card in Joe’s hand. Joe belatedly realizes it’s in Cyrillic. “Mr. Iosef Semenov.”

“It was all I could find!” 

“Mr. Iosef Semenov, _Chicken Inspector.”_ Her lips press into a flat line as she swallows a cackle, her eyes dancing with amusement. 

“Nicky and I didn’t just twiddle our thumbs during your year-long sabbatical, before the whole Merrick thing,” Joe mutters, shoving the card back into his pocket. “We helped a lot of people during our operation at that Slovakian meat-packing plant. And some chickens too.”

“Speaking of chickens.” She tips her chin at Nicolò, red-faced and dripping and glaring at them both - even if he won’t look Joe in the eye. “I don’t want to have to tie him up, but if we can’t keep him under control …”

“Boss, I promise I’ve got this,” Joe says, instinctively reaching for the other man’s elbow before he realizes what he’s doing, and he gestures instead. In Ligurian, “Come home. Please.”

“Home is across the sea,” Nicolò replies, crossing his arms and still not looking at Joe’s face. “That house is not home.”

How does Joe begin to explain that he didn’t mean the building, not at all? “I think there are some bottles of wine under the kitchen sink,” he says, instead. “And dry clothes. Please?”

Shoulders hunched in embarrassment, frowning at something over Andy’s head, Nicolò sloshes out of the fountain. “I will take the wine.”

Nile is unloading grocery bags when they get back. She was so confident they’d find Nicolò, she doesn’t even glance up at their entry. Head buried in the fridge, hands full of orange juice and hummus, she calls, “Copley is on his way, he’ll be here in the morning. The tech guy is Australian and is applying for repatriation, so this whole thing just became an international op and the CIA is taking over. That’s good news for us - Copley can use his contacts in the Agency for info, and he already has history with that VGL corporation that built the case for the rock. But he says he needs to make those connections in person.”

“Fuck me,” Andy exhales. “This is the second time. I swear if this bastard keeps crashing our operations, I’m going to fire him. This isn’t what he’s here for.”

“If he’s doing such a bad job, maybe we should dock his pay,” Nile says dryly, shooting her a sharp look over the top of the refrigerator door. “Y’know, _if we actually paid him_.”

“He tried to make us lab rats, not even six months ago! The sonofabitch is still on probation. We are _not_ paying him, and we are _not_ having this discussion again!” Andy spins on her heel and marches to the bathroom. “I’m going to get Nico a fucking towel.”

There’s one bottle of wine under the kitchen sink - a Stag’s Leap red from the 1980s, the quality of which is entirely lost on Nicolò as he practically chugs it. Fifteen minutes later, Andy heads out to the nearest liquor store for more supplies, and comes back with an impressive collection of bottles - enough vodka, rum, and wine to last a few days, given the ratio of immortal-to-mortal livers in attendance. 

Joe knows that the trick is to moderate the rate of Nicolò’s wine flow: enough to keep him quiet and contemplative, but not so much that he gets loud and impulsive and leaps out another window. As the definitive world expert on Nicolò di Genova’s alcohol tolerance, he maintains a perfect balance throughout the afternoon. 

After an hours-long burst of social engagement when he insists that Joe translate everything everyone says - and he even laughs a few times - Nicolò grows silent. He watches the other three, especially Joe, with his uncannily observant gaze, obviously deep in thought. Just after dinner, he’s fast asleep on the couch; not passed out, just snoring and twitching. Joe changes the blood-splattered sheets in the top floor bedroom and then heaves Nicolò to his feet, pulling one arm across his shoulders as he helps him climb the stairs. 

“It’s time to go to bed,” he says as the other man blinks blearily at his surroundings, and then at Joe. He tries very hard not to notice the familiar, perfect weight and warmth of his body stretched out against his side as he stumbles along. In the dark bedroom, Joe tips him onto the mattress and he groans and sprawls on his back, arms and legs spreadeagle. 

“Goodnight, Nicolò,” Joe says, pulling a blanket up around his shoulders. 

His hand darts out, seizing Joe’s wrist. He squints up in the dim light from the hallway. “Your beard is much longer than yesterday, in Jerusalem.” He hums thoughtfully. “It looks better shorter.”

Joe huffs a laugh, and without thinking he says, “ _Hayati_ , you’re one to talk with that dead rabbit on your face. We’ll both shave in the morning, if you like.”

“ _Hayati_ ,” Nicolò repeats, rolling the word on his tongue, and Joe realizes the other man doesn’t know what it means anymore. Gently, he slurs, “I should not have killed you so many times.” 

Was this what he was brooding about all afternoon? Killing Joe a thousand years ago? It isn’t exactly an apology - they’ve never spoken that sentiment aloud in all the time they’ve known each other. Maybe because they’ve spent dozens of lifetimes apologizing with loving caresses and oaths of devotion, instead? Maybe because if they hadn’t murdered each other they’d never have ended up here, and why should they apologize for fate? Whatever the reason, Nicolò’s words are as close as either of them has ever come. 

His fingernails press into Joe’s skin. Joe’s cheeks burn and his heart flutters like a teenager’s; he shifts his arm so his fingers circle Nicolò’s wrist in a reciprocal gesture. Dizzy with something that feels like hope, he hazards a half-grin.

Gaze bleary with alcohol, his forehead scrunched with the effort of coherent thought, Nicolò says, “Before, you said … you said you love me?” 

Joe has written thousands of verses in dozens of languages over the course of his long life, in an effort to adequately express the universe-altering nature of his devotion to Nicky. A million more stir in his soul, aching and raw and clamoring to be freed. In this moment, he only manages a soft, “Yes.” 

“And you say that I love you?”

“Yes.” His throat is so tight, his chest is going to pop like an over-full balloon. Nicolò’s pulse thumps under his thumb, his wrist warm and his skin soft. 

He makes a half-skeptical, half-thoughtful noise. “And your cock, it is very big?”

Joe snorts. “Enormous.”

“Good. If my soul is consigned to hell, I want to make sure that Satan has not cheated me in the bargain.” He blinks slowly, and fails to open his eyes again. 

“Enough.” Joe twists out of Nicolò’s already loosened grip. “You are drunk. Go to sleep.”

With the lightest of touches, he pulls a strand of lanky hair off of Nicolò’s face, his thumb brushing across his eyebrow. _How was it only this morning that I woke up to him pulling a sword on me? Feels like a fucking week ago._

It’s been nearly that long since he prayed, too. So Joe goes into the bathroom to scrub his hands, his face, his ears, his arms, and his feet. Then he comes back into the bedroom, fetches the prayer mat from his luggage, and takes his time observing _salat al-isha._

He ends his prayers sitting back on his heels, hands on his thighs, his head bowed, and his heart still aching. _Please, Allah. Please._ He doesn’t even know what to ask for exactly, except that Nicolò is not unhappy, that his spirit is well. 

It dawns on Joe then, what the two of them must do in the morning. Before they shave, and certainly before Andy is awake. Eventually he takes the spare pillow from the bed and a blanket from the closet, and he settles down to a sleepless night on the floor, positioned between Nicolò and the broken window.


	11. 1099

Al-Arish is a far cry from the bustling metropolis of Cairo, but it’s big enough. Yusuf guides the mare carefully through traffic, leading Nicky’s horse behind him.

It is a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

When he had come up with the _genius_ fucking idea of tying Nicky’s hands, Yusuf hadn’t considered the fact that he would be tying _himself_ as well. Every creak, every breath, every slight tug on the rein sends a shiver down his spine. The knowledge that Nicky can’t move his hands - that he has to depend on Yusuf - feels like a physical weight. What if some vengeful citizen attacks Nicky? Or Yusuf? What if they are caught in their ploy? 

Although honestly, the ploy could easily be true. Nicky mentioned a brother - perhaps there really is a rich family willing to pay a chest full of gold for their mad son.

 _You could never trade him for money_ , a voice inside him whispers. Yusuf shoves the thought firmly away. 

“I think there is an inn on the right,” says Nicky quietly.

“I have eyes,” Yusuf replies irritably. “And prisoners don’t speak. Try to at least …”

“Be imprisoned?” Nicky arches an eyebrow.

“Try to act sad about this!” Yusuf hisses. “You aren’t supposed to be happy!” 

A fond look is his only response.

Fucking _Nicky_. 

The building on the right is indeed an inn, a comfortably sized building, with an awning propped up over the door. A young man comes running out to take their horses as Yusuf dismounts, his smile fading as he sees Nicky’s bound hands.

Yusuf catches himself in the act of moving to help Nicky dismount - the man is agile enough - but another lightning smile tells him Nicky saw anyway. He scowls. Just because he was raised to be civilized doesn’t mean that they are suddenly friends. He unties the lead with quick, impatient tugs and walks Nicky into the inn. 

The innkeeper, a short man with a beard gone mostly to grey, gives them an apprehensive glance. “ _Salaamu alaikum_.” 

“ _Walaikum salaam_.” Yusuf clears his throat. “I am Yusuf al-Kaysani, and I need lodging for two for a few days.” 

“Kamil ibn Ahmed al-Badawi.” The innkeeper is now openly staring at Nicky. “Lodging for two, you say? Is your ... is he ... that is ...”

“This man is a private hostage that I am holding for ransom.” Yusuf tugs on the lead in what he hopes is a stern, authoritative fashion. “He won’t be any trouble.”

Al-Badawi shoots him a look. “You must have heard the news. There is an entire army of his people a few day’s ride from here, and they have besieged al-Quds. You know what is said about the Franks?”

“The invaders will not be mounting any rescue efforts, trust me.”

“I mean no disrespect, sir, but my wife and children are under this roof.” Al-Badawi rubs his hands nervously. “I don’t want trouble - for you, or for any other guests.” 

“I captured this coward fleeing from battle, and I am making good on the debt that his city owes my family.” Yusuf inclines his head. “I am from Mahdia.” 

“I see.” The name - and the genuine emotion in Yusuf’s voice - seems to assure al-Badawi at least of Yusuf’s intentions. “How will you watch him while you sleep?” 

Goddamn _logistics_. Yusuf tugs on the lead again, getting Nicky’s attention. “I spent the last hundred miles making this Frank understand that if he so much as sneezes rudely, I will end his miserable life myself. He knows that I am his best chance at seeing Genova again.” Yusuf looks pointedly at Nicky, switching to Sabir. “Don’t you?” 

Nicky widens his eyes and nods vigorously. Yusuf suspects he is doing his best impression of a model prisoner. It comes out somewhere closer to wall-eyed idiot. 

Al-Badawi still looks unconvinced. Sighing inwardly, Yusuf plays his last card. “I can pay extra for any inconvenience he might cause. My first visit will be to a rope maker - he won’t be roaming around without me.”

“The blacksmith would be better,” al-Badawi replies, looking up at Nicky’s height. But the promise of fair payment has tipped the scale, and he turns and gestures at the stairs. “This way, please. We have a room on the second floor with a sturdier door. I can give you the keys to lock it from the outside.” 

_Subhan Allah._ “Thank you. Thank you very much.” 

* * *

Of course there is only one bed.

Yusuf grits his teeth as he surveys the room in the light of the single little window, set high in the wall. What did he expect? No inn is going to have enough space to give every traveler their own bed. Which means that Yusuf is definitely sleeping on a mattress tonight, and Nicky is on the floor. A fair arrangement, all things considered.

Yusuf is looking forward to it. 

“The daggers will fetch a good price, but I think you should keep my sword and crossbow.” Nicky is rummaging clumsily through the saddlebags that the stablehand brought up. Yusuf had dropped the lead like a hot coal the minute the door closed behind them, feeling a rush of strange emotions. 

“Why should I?” Yusuf looks down at his hands. “Passage back to Zirid land will not be cheap.” 

“It won’t be safe, either.” Satisfied that everything is in order, Nicky sits back on his heels. He looks completely at ease, the bastard. “If we end up travelling alone again, it would be wise for both of us to be armed.” 

“Fine.” Yusuf says reluctantly. He can always sell them back home. “And you’re not going to be carrying any weapons while in town, remember?”

“Of course.” Nicky looks up at Yusuf. He’s smiling again. “What do we do next?”

“We?” Yusuf unbuckles the leather armor, pulling it over his head. “ _We_ don’t do anything. _I_ am going to find a bathhouse.” 

“What?” That wipes the smile off Nicky’s face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are going to stay here, and I am going to lock the door. And then I am going to find a market and sell some of your ridiculous collection. And then I am going to take a fucking bath.”

Nicky’s eyes are wide in earnest now. “Take me with you!”

“See?!” Yusuf points. “Where was _that_ face five minutes ago? When I was trying to convince the innkeeper you weren’t a rabid animal?” 

“You said yourself al-Arish might not be safe!” Nicky stands up. Yusuf stops himself from taking a step back. “You shouldn’t be going alone!” 

_If I don’t get an hour away from you, I will go mad_. “I can’t be killed, remember? And I’m more likely to make it safely through town alone.” Grabbing a saddlebag, Yusuf turns towards the door. “I can take care of myself.” 

“But why can’t _I_ do that?” Nicky says plaintively. “I thought the whole point was to stay together?”

“The whole point is me going home.” Yusuf grabs the door handle, yanks it open, and whips through the opening to slam it closed behind him. 

A bang from the other side. “ _Yusuf!_ ” 

“Keep quiet in there, or the innkeeper will turn us _both_ over to the garrison!” Yusuf snaps, turning the key. “I’ll be back later.” 

A final bang, and then indignant silence. Just like that, for the first time in a week Yusuf has room to breathe. Nicky is locked away and not his problem anymore. 

If only the same could be said of his thoughts of the man.

With his easy manner and charm, Yusuf is particularly good at negotiation; it’s why his father sends him on the most important business journeys, instead of his brother or cousins. He goes to the marketplace and trades Nicky’s daggers and axe for an outrageous sum. Immediately afterward, he buys a tangerine and practically forgets to peel it, shoving the juicy slices into his mouth like the starving man he is. When the tangerine is gone, it occurs to him that Nicky is also starving, and so he buys a second and tucks it into a fold of his clothing, to take back to the inn. 

Afterward he purchases proper rope for the Frank’s wrists, food for traveling, and fresh clothes for himself. He pauses over the clothes longer than he should, at first contemplating whether to bother buying Nicky anything, and then noticing a blue-green tunic that would match his eyes. 

“Sir, would you like a second? Or will you only buy the one?” the shopkeeper asks.

Yusuf starts as if he has been slapped. “Only the one,” he says so sharply that the shopkeeper doesn’t dare meet his eyes again. 

The hammams in town are relatively small - certainly compared to those in Cairo or even Mahdia - but they are supplied by the Nahal Mizraim, running high with cool water at this time of year. Yusuf takes his time, a sweat and a steam and a rinse - a proper _ghusl_ to make him feel human again. Even so, as he splashes himself with clean water and rinses away a desert’s worth of dust, the grim idea crosses his mind that he ought to be receiving the cleansing of the dead, in preparation for his funeral, given that he has died a half dozen times. 

In his new clothes, he stops by the port, walking up and down the jetties and speaking with the sailors. One of the ships is heading west in two days and willing to take passengers. Yusuf doesn’t pay for passage yet, but he promises to come back tomorrow to finalize arrangements. As the sun kisses the horizon, he returns to the inn. Downstairs, he orders supper and pays extra to have it delivered to the room. After all, he is not unreasonable; Nicky should have more than a tangerine to eat today. 

When he unlocks their room, he finds the Frank fast asleep. Usually Nicky rests so lightly, Yusuf can wake him with a sigh. Now, he’s curled up on his side and doesn’t even stir at the sound of the opening door. He must be deeply exhausted. 

He has fallen asleep, of course, _in the single fucking bed_.

Fury sweeps over Yusuf like a tide. This Frank murdered him four separate times, and then proceeded to sprawl across his life as if he has a right to take up room in it. He knows too much, he acts too familiar, and he topped off his entire act by allowing Yusuf put him in more danger than any reasonable creature should ever tolerate, binding his hands and following him with a bowed head and smug smiles into a town full of mortal enemies. Yusuf is generally a reasonable man - too thoughtful, his father says, his head always in a book. But how can one be reasonable when confronted with such persistent, pervasive intrusions? This Genovese motherfucker is eating up space in his life, in his thoughts, and now in his _bed_.

“Get up,” Yusuf growls, slamming the door shut and dropping his bulging saddlebags to the floor. He steps over to shove Nicky’s shoulder with a fist. “Up, bastard! _Up!_ ”

“ _Cuore mio_ , come to bed,” Nicky mumbles, half-asleep, rolling onto his back and reaching for Yusuf with his wrists still bound. 

Yusuf flinches away and seizes the side of the bed, which is actually a cot made of lightweight wood slung with blankets. Nicky is heavy, but Yusuf still manages to tip the bed onto its side and dump him onto the floor. His body hits the wooden planks with a loud thump, as does the furniture. 

This finally rouses Nicky properly. He wriggles on the floorboards, struggling in search of Yusuf. His voice is a croak, dry and disoriented: “Joe?”

“Don’t call me that word,” Yusuf snaps, fingernails digging into his own palms. In the dim sunset trickling in from the high window, he sees now that the rope has somehow tightened around Nicky’s wrists, leaving his hands swollen and discolored. A small, reasonable part of him recognizes that the other man was probably sleeping so soundly because he’s delirious with hunger and thirst and maybe even pain. Yusuf left him here like this, locked up for hours. His stomach churns sour, his fury sagging like a sail that has lost its wind. 

Someone pounds at the door. “Sir? I have the dinner you sent for.” 

Nicky peers at him from behind the upturned bed, all gentle confusion. With a deep sigh, Yusuf opens the door to find al-Badawi staring at him in concern and trying to glimpse into the room. He shifts to block his view. “Is everything … safe?”

“Everything is fine.” He shoves a handful of coins into the other man’s palm, far too many, before he snatches the bowl of food in return. “Would you be so kind as to bring water? I would like to wash.”

Al-Badawi bobs his head. “Certainly.”

Yusuf closes the door, and in the lingering grey light he pulls the bed back onto its four feet. No longer pinned, Nicky wiggles into a seated position against the wall. “Joe?”

“I told you, stop calling me that word.” Yusuf puts the food on the floor and pulls a dagger from his hip. Going to his knees in front of Nicky, he cuts the mirr rope from his wrists. The other man’s thick, swollen hands clutch at him clumsily. He pulls the spare tangerine from the folds of his new clothes and peels it in a few deft movements. “Here, eat.”

Nicky fumbles the first slice in his misshapen fingers, dropping it to the floor. 

“Motherfucker,” Yusuf grumbles. 

“You came back. I was worried … but no, you came back.” Nicky laughs - at least, it’s vaguely laugh-like, a raspy wheezing noise. His face is marked with unrestrained relief. Why would he laugh? Why, when he is still covered in sand and the misery of the desert? When Yusuf spoiled himself at the hammam for hours and left Nicky tied up in this room without water and food? 

He holds a slice of the tangerine to Nicky’s lips. Nicky surveys his face and takes the citrus onto his tongue, closes his mouth around it. His cheeks hollow as he sucks out the juice before swallowing. Then he _groans_.

Without a doubt, it’s the most obscene noise Yusuf has heard in all his life.

“I’m sleeping in the bed,” he says sternly. Because fuck this Frank, fuck _everything_ that has happened since he left Mahdia so many months ago, he deserves to have something that isn’t tainted by this new horrible _thing_ in his life. “That’s _my_ bed.”

“You should not have left me alone here, then,” Nicky croaks. Yusuf shoves another slice of tangerine into his mouth, just to shut him up.

“You shouldn’t have invaded al-Quds,” Yusuf retorts. 

“A fair point.” Nicky sucks on the fruit. At least he doesn’t groan this time. “In light of that, you can have the bed.” 

“Fuck you.” Yusuf tosses the rest of the tangerine into his lap, followed by the waterskin, and leaves him there. He picks up the pillow, arranges it on the bed, and sits down with his bowl of food to eat - staking out his territory. It feels important to clarify one essential point, as he does so: “I don’t like you.”

“So you say.” 

Nicky flashes his teeth in a maddeningly cocky grin before opening the waterskin and tipping it into his mouth. He drains at least half its contents in several long gulps. His hands have started to heal already, the skin no longer an unsettling shade of purple. After drinking, he straightens against the wall and sticks his legs out along the floor, wiggling his bare toes. 

“I have booked passage for myself on a ship,” Yusuf says, bending the truth around a mouthful of lamb. “And if you don’t stop lying to me, I’ll leave you here in al-Arish to fend for yourself when I go.”

Nicky’s grin drops. “Lying? I told you, Yusuf, I never lie to you.” 

“You know too many things you shouldn’t know. You are … you are _too familiar_ , and you act like a man who has memorized the entire library of Alexandria with all its secrets. I will have an explanation, or I will leave you behind.”


	12. 1099

Nicky puts the last two tangerine pieces in his mouth, chewing slowly. He lets the silence stretch out for a long, uncomfortable minute while his eyes stare off into middle distance. “It might be easier if you just believed me a madman.”

“Oh no, you are definitely still insane.” Yusuf notices Nicky eyeing the food and pointedly takes another bite. Explanation first. “But being insane doesn’t explain how you knew my dreams, or my name, or where I live. We only met a week ago, and you heard none of that from me. So either you are a very specific prophet, or you have been stalking me since before we met. Which one is it?”

“Neither.” Nicky gives Yusuf a long look. “I promised I would not lie to you. And I won’t do it now. But none of what I’m about to say will make sense.”

Yusuf licks a drop of sauce off his finger. “Try me.” 

“Alright. Here it is.” Nicky takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, bracing his hands on his thighs. “I am from the future.”

The bowl almost falls from his hands. “You _what?_ ”

“I am from the future. The year -” Nicky frowns, counting on his fingers and mouthing out the numbers. “It would be _hijra_ year … thirteen hundred? Fifteen hundred? Sometime around there. Things start blurring together after a while.”

“You were born … a thousand years from now?”

“No, I was born only three years after you, in this century. But I’m _from_ the future. Somehow I was sent back into my own past. I am living all of this again, for a second time. That’s how I knew your name, and the place where you were born - I have lived through the siege once before.” Nicky smiles faintly. “I am meeting you for our second first time.”

There is an odd pressure building in his chest. “And the dreams?” 

“We - I mean immortals - we dream of each other. They stop when we meet. The first time I met you, at the fall of al-Quds, your dreams and mine were the same. Two women, on horseback, riding together.” Nicky leans his head back against the wall with a thump, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But now, apparently, that is no longer true.” 

“A thousand years.” Yusuf says slowly. “You say that you have known me a thousand years. And you followed me all that time?”

“Forever.” Nicky sits up again, leaning in towards Yusuf. 

“And in the future, we are … friends?”

“Yes.” Those unnerving eyes are shining.

“Good friends?”

“That, and more.” 

Yusuf bursts out into wild, uncontrollable laughter. 

“I told you!” Nicky leans back, looking crestfallen. 

“You actually expect -” Yusuf chokes out, putting down the bowl. “You actually expect me to believe that shit? Past lives? Meeting twice? Us being _friends_? You’re not even trying that hard!”

“I am not lying!” Finally, a hint of true irritation.

“No, really.” Yusuf wipes at his eyes, still laughing. He knows he is being hysterical, but this is the final straw. “Who hired you? Was it al-Mustazhir? No - al-Afdal Shahanshah, that paranoid old schemer. You know, of all the listening ears in Cairo, I shouldn’t even rate the _hiring price_ of someone like you. If the Nizaris thought I were associated with them they would die of shame.” 

“What about the women we see?” Nicky casts about, biting his lip. “It might not be the same dream, but they are the same people. How would I know that, if I were lying to you?” 

“A man dreams of two beautiful women kissing. So what? Maybe we saw the same two faces at some point. Maybe I talk in my sleep. Maybe they aren’t even the same women - you just made a clever guess.” 

Nicky pushes off the wall with a frustrated sound, sitting up on his heels so he can face Yusuf properly. “I don’t know how to prove to you that I’m telling the truth. What do you want to hear?”

“How about something less crazy? You said that we were best friends for a thousand years - what happens next? No wait -” Yusuf holds out a hand as Nicky opens his mouth. “Let me guess. I swear an oath of loyalty and tell you everything I know, and then I sign over my inheritance and give you the keys to my family’s estate. You take everything I’ve told you and run straight back to your master, whoever he is, so his army can sweep the Maghreb and crown you king of the world. There is peace on earth, the heavens open in a shower of gold, and a harem of beautiful axe-wielding women serves you for the rest of your days. Did I get it right?”

“You don’t believe me,” Nicky says quietly.

“Of course I don’t fucking believe you!”

“Why not?” The eerie calm is back, and Nicky is looking at Yusuf again. With those uncanny eyes, he really does look like he might be a thousand years old. “Why would me being from the future be any more crazy than you healing from a sword to the chest?”

“Because it’s just too much!” Yusuf waves his arms. “The healing I can’t explain - and I’ll notice _you_ haven’t explained it either.”

“That one, I don’t have an answer for,” Nicky says wryly.

“Good! You admit it! So for some reason we two have been singled out from the whole earth, and neither of us knows why. Fine. _Allahu a’lam._ But then you come up with this bullshit about being a thousand years old, about living twice, about us being _best friends_ when I know for fucking certain that the only thing we have in common is this …” Yusuf gestures vaguely between them. “... this _thing_ that heals our injuries.”

A resigned sigh. “So what other explanation is there?” 

Yusuf snorts, picking up his bowl and taking another bite. “I think someone hit you on the head in al-Quds, and you mixed up your mission to find me with whatever bizarre shit is happening to us.” 

“Then why haven’t I recovered after all the times you killed me?” Nicky waves at the scimitar, hanging on a nail by the door. “If all it took was a blow to the head, why aren’t you also losing your memories?”

“Maybe they cut off your head altogether.” The bowl isn’t quite empty, but the lamb is rapidly losing its appeal. “Just because I don’t know why something is happening doesn’t mean the sky is suddenly a different color.” 

Nicky takes a breath to reply, but a knock at the door makes them both jump. Al-Badawi’s careful voice drifts through the door. 

“The water you asked for?”

“One moment.” Yusuf gives up on the meal and pushes the rest of the food towards Nicky, who grabs the bowl and takes a giant wolfish bite just as Yusuf opens the door. 

“I brought a bucket and a washcloth, in case you needed more.” Al-Badawi tries to peer into the room again in what he probably thinks is a subtle manner. Nicky is not the naked wraith he was in the stable, but there is a week’s worth of travel on his skin and dried blood on his clothes. His hair still looks like someone clipped him for lice. “Do you want anything else?”

“No, but thank you again.” Yusuf grimly takes the bucket and the rag, closing the door and filing the problem of curious innkeepers away for another time. Nicky is still busy devouring the rest of the meal. “If you get sick from eating too fast, I’m not cleaning it up.” 

“I won’t get sick.” Nicky polishes off the last of the lamb in the bowl and sighs. “Aren’t you still hungry?” 

“Lost my appetite.” Yusuf thumps the bucket down on the floor and tosses Nicky the rag. “You should wash while you can. You stink. And you probably got sand all over the bed.”

“Does this mean you are going to take me with you?” Nicky stands in a fluid motion, taking the hem of his mail shirt in his hands and bending to wiggle it over his head. The links clash down to the floor in a heap of metal. 

“Our deal was for the truth, not for crazy stories.” Yusuf turns determinedly away as Nicky undoes the gambeson, leaving his chest bare. 

“I don’t have anything else.” Nicky’s voice has that soft, plaintive tone to it that particularly gets under Yusuf’s skin. “If you would rather kill me again a hundred times, I would let you. If I had answers, I would give them gladly. But I don’t understand what is happening to me, either.”

Yusuf closes his eyes. Damn him. Damn Nicky, and all Franks, and all of their lying, murderous ways and their pleading eyes. 

… _One_ more night can’t hurt.

* * *

Looking back on things, maybe Nicky should have slept in the chainmail. In the desert he would have. Here in this tiny room, with the afternoon heat lingering and only one high window for ventilation, he doesn’t even bother putting on his tunic. The novelty of cleanliness makes him feel almost normal, so he leaves his dirt and blood-stained shirt off and doesn’t even look at the chainmail again. 

At this point, he’d trade the whole twelfth century, all hundred years, for a real shower. Even the shitty shower in the San Francisco safehouse, with its trickling pressure and moody water heater.

Before Nicky finishes washing, Yusuf - unbearably handsome with his new clothes and oiled curls - sprawls on the narrow bed and snores softly. This sound has filled three hundred thousand of Nicky’s nights, steadier and more comforting than the eternal rumble of the Mediterranean outside. He cannot imagine life without it lulling him to sleep. 

In the darkness, bare-chested, Nicky picks a spot on the floor between the bed and the door. He lays down with the sword he stole from a dead Frenchman in Jerusalem, but he cannot rest.

Instead, he spends hours devising tactical contingency plans to convince Yusuf to fall in love with him. Plans for when Yusuf ditches him here in al-Arish and he has to find his way alone to Mahdia. Plans for when Yusuf lets him onto the ship, throws him overboard into the Mediterranean, and he has to swim to Mahdia. Plans for when Yusuf tries to sell him back to his brother Luciano, and in the very farfetched scenario where his family agrees to pay the ransom, Nicky immediately explains to them that he’s leaving to woo the man they bribed for his release in Mahdia. Plans for when he has to wait a few years for Yusuf to fall in love with him, a few dozen, a few hundred or more. 

An infinite number of possibilities branch out into this bizarre and unreal present-past, all fraught with the unknown. Nicky’s only way forward is guided by his only Polaris, the light that guides him always: the man snoring in the cot beside him.

The thing is, as much as it would hurt, Nicky wouldn’t blame Yusuf for choosing to leave him behind. He understands why. Even the first time he lived through this experience - so wildly off-course now, so far from the original chain of events - _even then_ , the inexperienced, ignorant fool he was, he _knew_ he deserved disdain and worse for being part of what happened in Jerusalem. Before, the two of them just needed time. A few years of learning to communicate and arguing and traveling and figuring out immortality together. This second go-round, Nicky has so much more knowledge and experience, and still not a damn clue what he’s doing. All he has is faith. Faith in God, faith in the man snoring on the bed next to him, and faith in his life’s purpose of using this strange gift he has been given to help people. 

Thoughts whirling, Nicky eventually exhausts himself enough to drift off. At some point before sunrise, the soft clink of the door lock wakes him up again. His hand closes around the grip of his sword before he’s fully awake; he’s halfway to his feet before the door opens. As usual, Joe is slow to rouse, groaning and groggy. 

Four soldiers tumble through the door, weapons drawn and glinting in the moonlight. _The innkeeper sold us out_. Because Nicky is a Frankish invader? For nonexistent Genovese ransom money? _Asshole!_

He shouts Yusuf’s name as he takes down the first soldier, finding his legs as he rocks forward, slashing up to open his gut in a spray of blood and a hideously familiar plop of intestines. This complicates matters, the floor turning slippery and warm beneath Nicky’s bare feet. The room is too small for this many people to maneuver in properly, especially not with long weapons like swords. 

_If only Yusuf hadn’t been so goddamn stubborn about trading all my knives for a tangerine._

Yusuf is finally moving behind him, turning the cot over on accident as he lurches upright. His scimitar still hangs on the nail by the door. _At least he has his dagger_ , Nicky thinks.

It doesn’t matter, that dagger. It doesn’t make a difference. It’s over in a matter of seconds; one of them gets past Nicky and drives Yusuf into the wall, splitting him open with a short sword. Joe would have easily parried that blow, redirected the soldier’s movement and disarmed him, because Andromache taught them how to do that. 

But Andromache isn’t here yet. 

Yusuf is dead, and will stay that way for at least a few minutes. He’s young right now, it takes longer to revive. A flash of protective rage flares in Nicky, but it’s quickly subsumed by the icy, efficient concentration that drives him like cold fusion in these moments of violence. In the end, his sword is simply too long. He gets in several good blows, he carves a slice in one man’s arm and leaves a broken nose on another, but it’s the blood-soaked floor that does it. Maybe blood from Yusuf or the first soldier Nicky took down, but he slips, and they’re on top of him in a flash. 

They crack his head with the pommel of a scimitar as he writhes beneath them, trying to throw them off. “Leave the dead one for al-Badawi to clean up. He has to earn his share,” one of them says, gesturing toward Yusuf’s corpse. Then another blow lands, harder than before.

 _Fuck me, this wasn’t one of my tactical contingencies_ , is Nicky’s last thought before he slips into unconsciousness.


	13. 2021

Nicolò cannot escape Jerusalem. The streets are a maze, each blind alley piled high with bodies and echoing with the screams of the dying. Occasionally as he stumbles through this purgatory, he finds Joe - Nicolò’s personal demon, his bespoke tormentor waiting to meet him around each new corner. He doesn’t want to pull his sword and fight, but he cannot stop himself; his hands move with a will of their own. Each time he and Joe die in each other’s arms, panting frantically in each other’s faces. 

He does not want to look inside the mosques and synagogues when he limps past; he never again wants to see the horrors they hold. He knows, with moral clarity that burns his insides to cinder, that God and all His saints are not pleased with the things being done in His name inside the Holy City.

“Nicolò, wake up!”

He shoves without thinking, trying to breathe, but the weight on his chest doesn’t budge. Waking with a violent start, he finds himself pinned to the bed. Joe sits beside him, one arm bent across his chest, his opposite hand clamped over Nicolò’s mouth.

“You were shouting in your sleep,” Joe says, low and soothing even as he strains to keep Nicolò from wrestling him off. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Nicolò’s breath comes in frantic bursts through his nose, hot against Joe’s fingers. The other man’s gaze locks with his, wide and full of concern. His first instinct is to flail and fight, but this is not Jerusalem. He has a choice now, so instead of fighting, he grips Joe’s arm tight. 

In his jumble of thoughts, he realizes that Joe’s eyes aren’t simply brown. Flecks of color range across his irises like stars, amber and russet and walnut and gold. Nicolò feels the sudden, overwhelming compulsion to map the constellations there - like when he was a boy, and he would climb the rafters through the holes in the roof of his family’s disintegrating villa, to lay on the broken slate tiles and count the stars. 

“I’m going to let you go,” Joe says. “Promise not to yell again?”

Nicolò nods. The air is cold when it hits his lips, the room misty and damp from the broken window. Pale sunrise filters through the open frame; it’s a new day. Joe releases him, sitting back to give him space. He offers a hand and pulls him up to sit, too. Nicolò’s heart hammers, his throat raw as he sucks in another breath. 

“I need you to be quiet, because we can’t wake up Andy or Nile when we leave the house,” Joe says. “We’re going to go to church, so you can see the priest.”

This does nothing to slow Nicolò’s pulse, but it does bring a new flutter to his stomach. Dread and hope - always both, the awful process of confession, of baring his shame and guilt before the assignment of penance and the freedom of absolution. As many mortal sins as Nicolò has committed in his life, nothing has come close to the confession burdening him now, this millstone around his neck.

“Yes,” Nicolò says. “Please.”

Joe gives him fresh clothes, and they escape the sleeping house without incident. As they turn a nearby corner on the street, they come face-to-face with Nile. She’s wearing strange, tight clothes, her face covered in a sheen of sweat as if she has been running from the devil himself.

“Shit,” Joe says.

 _“Hi,_ Joe,” says Nile slowly, drawing out the long vowel sound over multiple syllables. “ _Ciao,_ Nicky.” 

“ _Nicolò,”_ corrects Joe, with a slightly nervous smile. Nicolò puts on his best innocent grin, trying not to pluck at his own thin leggings. Apparently no one in San Francisco wears outer layers. 

Nile gives him a brief nod before turning and asking Joe a stern question. The tone is clear: _Where the fuck do you think you’re going?_

Joe gives her a sheepish reply. The conversation bounces back and forth in their strange, clipped language, getting more worried on Nile’s part and more defensive on Joe’s. Nicolò watches their faces, trying not to squirm uncomfortably as he catches snippets of his own name. 

Finally Nile points at Nicolò, her voice rising in a query, then turns to look at him expectantly as she crosses her arms. The image of Agnesia rises painfully in Nicolò’s mind - Nile looks exactly as his sister-in-law did when Nicolò was late coming home. He swallows a lump in his throat. If this is truly a thousand years into the future, Vincenti and Agnesia have been dead and buried for centuries. 

“She’s asking if you will run away again, Nicolò.” Joe translates. “Nile is worried that if I let you leave the house, you will simply run away again and endanger us all.” 

“I won’t run away,” Nicolò says, far too quickly. 

Nile arches a brow, the skepticism clear in her voice. _That wasn’t what happened yesterday_. 

“Tell her,” Nicolò says awkwardly to Joe. “Tell her that … that I was uncertain yesterday. Uncertain and foolish. I didn’t understand fully what was going on, and I don’t want any trouble.” _Not today, in any case._

Nile still looks doubtful, but a pleading glance from Joe seems to convince her. Another long conversation ensues where Nile is the one insisting and Joe is the one refusing. But eventually Joe tosses up his hands in defeat, turning back to the house. 

_Joe talks with his hands_ , thinks Nicolò absently. _Joe has an artist’s hands._

Nile turns to him. “ _Io verró con te_ ,” she says carefully, placing her hand over her heart and extending it towards Nicolò. 

Apparently Nile is coming to confession too. 

* * *

“No,” Nicolò says stubbornly. “I can walk.” 

The three of them are squashed together in the tiny space of the garage around the sedan Nile had rented. Nicolò has pressed himself stubbornly against the dusty shelves, crossing his arms. Nile looks quizzically at them from the driver’s side.

“Come on, Nicolò,” coaxes Joe. “This is easier, faster, more secure. Nile is a good driver.” 

“It’s not natural.” Nicolò scowls, wrinkling his nose. “How do these things even move? And why do they all stink like that? 

Joe opens his mouth to explain - he does, in fact, know a thing or two about cars - but runs up against a lack of terms for _internal combustion engine_. “There’s a, um. A firebox that turns a mechanism for the wheel axles in the front part. That’s how it moves forward. Nile can steer the car from inside.” 

“More witchcraft,” Nicolò grumbles. 

“It’s not, I promise. See?” Joe opens the rear passenger door and gets in, sliding across to the driver’s side and patting the seat next to him. “Just like a carriage, except better. Wagons have come quite a long way in a thousand years.” 

“He’d better hurry up and decide,” says Nile, with a glance towards the door. “Andy got hit by jet lag pretty hard, but she’s going to see my note when she comes down for breakfast.” 

“Fine.” Nicolò is still scowling at the car, but a last glance at Nile seems to encourage him. “What’s one more thing to confess?”

Nicolò maneuvers slowly around the open door, hand out as though he were coaxing a skittish horse. He puts one hand gingerly on the roof, bracing himself on the frame before inching one foot into the interior of the car and ducking his head carefully inside.

“About time,” sighs Nile, and plops into the driver’s seat to start the ignition. 

The rumble of the engine and the shriek of an electric guitar make all of them jump. Nicolò starts and swears loudly, banging his head on the roof of the car and tripping backwards onto the garage floor. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Nile shouts over the radio, trying to hide a grin as she rushes to turn off the sound. “I forgot it was on!”

Nicolò glares at them from the ground, brushing a cobweb off his shoulder. “Am I just going to spend the next hundred years falling on my ass?” 

Joe can’t help it. He bursts into laughter. 

The unexpected mirth sets Nile off, and both of them are suddenly laughing together in a rush of pent-up emotion and relief. Nicolò curses, rubbing his head, but a chagrined smile is spreading across his face in spite of himself. 

And suddenly, it’s _Nicky_ sitting on the garage floor. Nicky, wearing his old shirt and his worn jeans, chuckling back at him with that familiar duck of his head and the self-deprecating quirk of his lips. Nicky, looking back at Joe, meeting his eyes and holding his gaze as though Joe were the only thing in the entire universe. 

The laughter abruptly dies in his throat. 

“Sorry, Nicolò, but that was hilarious,” Nile says, still grinning. “Come on. I promise the car doesn’t bite.” 

Joe scoots over and reaches out a hand, but Nicolò waves him back. He blows a long strand of messy hair out of his face, then gathers his feet determinedly under him and launches himself bodily into the car. The sedan rocks with the impact. Nicolò rearranges his long limbs in the passenger side seat, looking wildly around the enclosed space as Joe reaches across him to shut the door. Nile quietly engages the childproof lock.

“Seatbelts!” she says cheerfully, buckling hers with a pointed look at Joe. “Um … _sicurezza_ , Nicolò.” 

Nicolò looks at Joe uneasily. “Why is she tying herself to the seat?”

“It’s a new law - you have to wear a special belt when you drive in these. Pull on the buckle over your right shoulder, then put it into the red slot.” Joe switches to English. “It’s a little pointless for immortals who need to stretch out sometimes, but ...”

“Hey, click it or ticket,” says Nile, twisting to look around. “Even for immortals. Especially for people who might jump out of a moving car and run away. Trust me on this one.” 

Nicolò fumbles a few times with the seatbelt before he manages to put the tab into the right buckle. He looks up at Nile with a triumphant little smile that widens as she returns the smile in the rearview mirror. 

Joe puts his hands in his pockets, withdrawing back across the center divide. Nile has a very beautiful smile. And she is wearing her golden cross, as well. Of course Nicolò would feel calmer and more at ease, with a kind person like Nile trying to help. 

_This is not about me._


	14. 2021

St. Thomas of Canterbury is thankfully quiet. Nicolò had stared out of the car window with an awed expression throughout the short drive to the church, but as the steeple loomed in the distance he grew more and more withdrawn. His face as he walks grimly through the church doors and dips his fingers in the holy water font looks like a man going to his own execution. 

A comfortable-looking old man with white hair looks up from folding a drape on the altar. “Oh, hello. Can I help you?”

Nicolò squares his shoulders determinedly. “Tell this man that I would like to see the priest.” 

“I think he _is_ the priest,” murmurs Joe under his breath. 

Nicolò shakes his head impatiently. “Not dressed like that, he isn’t. Besides, how would you know?” 

Joe opens his mouth to reply indignantly when Nile steps forward. He owes her a thousand ridiculous American coffees. “We were looking for a priest. Our friend here was hoping to … to go to confession? I’m not sure if we needed an appointment, I’m sorry.” 

“Well you’re in luck. I’m Father Yorke, nice to meet you.” The priest holds out his hand for Nile to shake. “I’ve got a few folks coming in a couple hours, but nothing that your friend should need to worry about. What’s your name?” 

Nile’s firm handshake falters only slightly. “Nora.” 

“Joe.” Joe smiles and holds his hand out. “Our friend here is Nicky, but he doesn’t speak English. I don’t suppose you could hear confession in …” Joe casts about. “... in Latin? In Greek?”

“Wow. It’s … um. Wow. Your friend speaks both?” Father Yorke rubs his head, giving Nicky an interested look. “Not a request I get every day. I mean, it’s been a while since seminary - I could try Latin? And if that doesn’t work there’s Google Translate, I guess. Where did you say he was from, again?” 

"A tiny, isolated town in Italy. This is his first time abroad." _Only a partial lie, which is fine. That’s fine, right?_ He turns to Nicolò. “Father Yorke will take your confession in Latin.”

Nicolò shoots a furtive glance at the priest before leaning in to whisper to Joe, “I did not study long at the abbey. My Latin is like a child’s.”

“That’s fine. So is Father Yorke’s,” Joe replies with an encouraging nod. “God will understand.”

Nile rubs Nicolò’s back reassuringly, giving him the tiniest of shoves toward the priest. “We’ll be right here.”

Nicolò blinks, obviously not understanding her words even as he steps toward Father Yorke anyway. The priest has his cell phone out, Google Translate already cued up. “This way, my son.” 

With a deep breath, Nicolò follows him to the confessional, a wooden structure tucked into one of the transepts. Joe stares after them until he disappears behind a curtain, and the priest shuts himself into his wooden box beside it.

His trudging gait almost identical to Nicolò’s, Joe shuffles to the nearest pew and collapses. Nile sits beside him in loaded silence, until he can’t stand it anymore. “So how was the Chambal Valley? Did you take a boat down the river?”

Nile’s face puckers into a concerned frown, and she reaches for his hand, threading their fingers together in her lap. “You don’t have to pretend like things are normal, Joe.”

“Can’t we? Just for a minute?”

She leans into his shoulder. “The river was beautiful, and kinda terrifying. We camped for three days. Andy wants to go back after all this is sorted out, because I saw the dolphins, but not the jackals.”

“One time when I revived from a fight in a grove of mangoes, I woke up to find a jackal eating my foot,” Joe says, nodding sagely. He casts back in his memory for a date, squinting as if he might read the numbers in the distance, somewhere beyond the altar. “In the early 1400s, I think? Wouldn’t recommend it. Hurt like hell.”

“You’re shitting me,” Nile gasps, then shoots a contrite look at a nearby crucifix. She lowers her voice: “You can’t just _say_ stuff like that.”

“Totally true,” Joe replies, perky in spite of himself. It has been centuries since he’s been able to share his weird stories with someone who reacts with an appropriate amount of alarm. Booker was already so jaded by the time they found him, on the opposite end of Napoleon’s antics, he was rarely impressed by these tidbits. Nile is a breath of fresh air, her reactions a reminder of what it is to be so very new and inexperienced. 

Of course, now that Nicky is like _this_ ... whatever sort of amnesia _this_ is … his breadth of immortal experience is even narrower than Nile’s. Nicolò doesn’t remember that particular incident with the jackals and the mangoes in India, even though he was there. He doesn’t remember freezing to death in Joe’s arms in the Alps and reviving iced into an embrace they literally couldn’t escape. He doesn’t remember posing as a chicken inspector a year ago; or fighting at Gettysburg or Irún; or saving any of the thousands of people he has helped over the centuries. 

Until they figure out how to cure him, Nicolò has lost the memory of all those things. He has lost the memory of experiencing them alongside Joe. The weight of that loss is so heavy, Joe can’t bear to think about it. If he does, he might just fall apart. 

“I guess I’ll keep that in mind when we go back to India,” Nile says, elbowing him. “Note to self: don’t get eaten by jackals.”

“Principles to live by.” He stares at the nearest stained glass window, because it’s easier than looking at the confessional. 

Nile makes a soft sound, as if trying to figure out how to fit certain syllables through her throat. “How pissed is Andy gonna be when we get back to the house?”

“She won’t yell,” Joe replies with a shrug. 

“Oh.” A deep breath, her grip tightening on his hand. He squeezes back, half reassuring her, half for his own reassurance. “That’s worse than when she does yell, though.”

“This morning, at this church, is a rescue mission. It's worth the risk. She’ll come around. She’ll understand.” Joe doesn’t have to fake his conviction; he knows from experience. “Anyway, Copley will be here to distract her soon.”

Nile snorts, then her expression brightens. “What if we take Nicky to London and show him Copley’s immortal conspiracy board? So he can see all the things he - _y’all_ \- have done?”

“That would involve convincing him that airplanes aren’t witchcraft,” Joe replies, scrunching his nose and scratching his beard with his free hand. “Which might be a bridge too far for today. We’ll put it on the long-term to-do list.”

At this point, the curtain flicks aside and Nicolò steps out. His cheeks are dry but the skin beneath his eyes is a particular shade of red; Joe knows the exact sort of tears his love cried in that booth, the hot mournful ones full of regret. The last time he looked like that, it was after a botched rescue in Afghanistan. Without glancing in their direction, he makes his way to the nearest pew and slides down onto his knees, his head bowed. 

Joe tries to stand, but Nile grips his hand tighter, holding him in his seat. “Give him a sec.” 

Father Yorke emerges from his door and, his forehead wrinkled in consternation, he comes to see the two of them. 

“Is everything okay?” Nile asks, an undercurrent of tension in her voice, as if she’s poised to launch into some backup plan, depending on the priest’s reaction to whatever happened inside that confessional. 

“It was trickier than I expected with the Latin, and your friend spoke in a lot of … metaphors, I think? But his contrition is clear. He asked me to speak to you about his penance, because we had some trouble at the end with translation.” A look passes across his face, bafflement and wonder and resignation. Resignation, in particular, to the fact that no matter how incredible a cocktail party story this incident might make, he can never share it because of his dedication to the sacramental seal and his duty of silence. 

“What should we do?” Joe asks. 

“There is no ‘we.’ It’s his penance, not yours,” Father Yorke replies gently. “Six months of dedication to his daily prayer, morning, noon and night. He should choose a charitable cause and devote himself to regular service there for the same amount of time.” He pauses. “There was another step about making personal amends, but I think he understood that on his own.”

“Okay.” Joe stands up, thrusting out his hand. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Father Yorke shakes it warmly, his gaze including Nile. “If you’re in town long, we have Mass every day at noon and six, and a couple more on Sundays.” He lets go and steps back. “Nicolò asked to take communion, which is a little unusual outside of services, but I’m going to make an exception. If you’ll excuse me.” 

Joe stands there, his attention riveted to Nicolò kneeling alone in his pew, head bowed and resting on his folded hands. His heart aches - not with sorrow but with love, with adoration, so vast and deep that there aren’t enough words in any language to encompass it. 

Tears burn the corners of his eyes, because this Nicolò doesn’t understand how much he is loved - how _worthy_ he is of love, how his heart that was so changed in Jerusalem has led to a thousand years of helping others. How his presence steeps Joe’s days in joy, even when he leaves dirty socks on Joe’s side of the bed, or when he doesn’t put his sniper rifle away so Joe breaks a toe in the middle of the night. Without Nico - his dirty socks and sniper rifles and gentle hands and open heart, _all_ of him - Joe would be adrift. 

Nicolò takes communion from Father Yorke and then returns to Joe and Nile. His breathing is shallow, his arms hanging like wrung dishtowels. 

“Hey,” Joe says, which is inadequate and not even a word in old Ligurian, but his tongue is wrapped in nervous knots. 

Pale as death, Nicolò brings his eyes to meet Joe’s. “I have trespassed against you, Joe, and against God himself. I wish to express my contrition for -” 

He doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever apology he was working on, because all the careful restraint and self-control Joe has mustered over the last twenty-four hours finally breaks. He’s already moving, closing the distance between them and pulling Nicolò into his arms. Their bodies crash together, and Joe buries his face in the other man’s shoulder. 

“You’re forgiven, Nico. Always.”

* * *

“Could you -” Copley rests his elbows on the kitchen table. “I’m so sorry about this, I’m very jetlagged right now, but could someone just … explain to me, _one_ more time, what exactly is going on?” 

“Like we said _,_ ” says Joe wearily. “Nicolò lost his memories.” 

“And grew his hair out,” Nile pipes up. “Overnight.”

“So Mr. di Genova … traded his memories … for hair? 

“And a suit of chainmail,” adds Andy.

Copley drags his hands down his face, massaging at his temples. “I realize this is an odd question …”

“Welcome to our fucking lives,” snaps Joe.

“But I have to ask - is this … normal? I mean, for ...”

“For immortals?” Andy shifts in her chair. “No. This would be a first.” 

“Thank God for that,” mutters Nile under her breath, sneaking a glance at the sink. Nicolò is standing there, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, scrubbing determinedly at his chainmail coif with a rapidly fraying washrag. “Couldn’t we just chuck that in the dishwasher or something?” 

Andy waves her hand. “It keeps him busy.” 

“Was he injured?” Copley asks. “Maybe head trauma or specific chemical exposure?”

“We’ve been gassed and shot before. As you know.” Joe scowls. “And like Andy said, nothing like this ever happened.”

“Just thought I’d cover all my bases,” Copley leans down to pull a tablet out of his bag. “Well, this might explain some things from the police reports.” 

The chair is skidding back across the floor before Joe realizes he has stood up. “Mother _fucker._ You had those the whole time?” 

“I only just got them!” Copley holds up his hands. “They didn’t download until I landed. I skimmed them briefly on the ride over, and when I got here, well.” He looks over at Nicolò, who is sniffing carefully at the liquid soap suds on his hands. As they all watch, he tentatively licks the pad of his index finger and makes a face. “When I got here, I was a little distracted.” 

“Well, _focus_ ,” Andy says angrily. “What the hell did you find?”

“Here.” Copley unlocks the tablet and opens a file, scrolling rapidly. “There’s only a few from the local first responders; the rest of them are agency reports from the CEO’s arrest.” 

“Ethan Reeve?” Nile wrinkles her nose. “I’m gonna hate the answer, but tell me he’s still in custody.”

“I’m afraid not,” says Copley grimly. “He had bail, private counsel, _and_ a court date before the squad car even got back to the station.”

“Did he get an ankle monitor?”

“Ruled not necessary due to posted bond and ‘strong ties to the community.’” Copley shakes his head. “The AG hasn’t officially filed charges yet, and the media is screaming about child trafficking. But what’s interesting are the IDs you found.” 

“Yeah.” Joe reluctantly grabs his chair and sits back down, bending over to look at the tablet. “There were four IDs there along with the kids, but they didn’t belong to anyone.” 

Copley turns the tablet towards him, the four driver’s licenses displayed on the screen. “These four names? Are the names of four missing persons cases scattered over the past 6 months. Pedro Yglesias was a graduate student at San Francisco State - his roommates reported him missing four months ago when he didn’t come back from what they thought was a family visit. Sara Williamson was a transient with a history of narcotics use. Her boyfriend filed the report when he tried to visit her at the county rehab program and she wasn’t there.” 

“Wait a minute.” Joe frowned. “Sara Williamson. The oldest kid in the lab said that was her name.”

“It was. And is.” Copley reached out and tapped the screen, scrolling back up. “And she’s not the only one. The initial report mentions four child victims, all listed under the last name Doe because they’re minors. But take a look at their first names. See anything familiar?” 

Joe, Nile, and Andy all lean in to look simultaneously. 

“What the fuck?” breathes Andy. 

“They’re the same,” says Nile, in a strangled voice. “The four kids. They have the same first names as the missing persons.” 

“And that’s not all,” says Copley. “Hair color. Eye color. Gender. Birth date. All matches, for all four children. Everything is right … except for how old they should be.” 

“Wait.” Nile straightens. “Hold up. What are you saying?”

“I’m not _saying_ anything,” says Copley carefully. “I haven’t been able to confirm ...”

Nile’s voice rises to a squeak. “Are you saying that this lab somehow managed to _de-age Nicky_?!” 

“Like I said …”

“This is fucking insane!” Joe snatches the tablet and starts desperately scrolling through the police reports. Panic is beating against his ribcage. “There is no way _de-aging_ is what is happening here!”

“I just got hard proof that immortal humans existed on our planet less than a year ago. Why should this be any less plausible?”

“Because it’s … because it’s just too much!” Joe shoves the tablet back towards Copley and puts his head in his hands. “We can’t explain why we heal, but we’ve never _gone backwards_. It’s impossible!” 

“I only have a few data points so far,” says Copley in what Joe is sure he _thinks_ is a placating fashion. “I’m just saying. We know that companies other than Merrick’s were interested in arresting the human aging process. And the fountain of youth has been an obsession of the human race for centuries. Why wouldn’t other companies be trying their own solutions to the problem?” 

All of their eyes turn involuntarily to look at the case on the counter. The cracked acrylic and its mysterious contents have suddenly taken on a much more sinister tone. 

“Look,” said Copley. “This is all just guesswork. Let me speak to my contacts here. We can follow up on the children, confirm if this is really something supernatural or just some twisted attempt at symmetry. We don’t know if the other three last names match yet.” 

“We talked about this,” says Andy. “Why bother wasting more time when we could just go beat some answers out of this Reeve asshole?” 

“Yeah,” says Nile, squaring her shoulders. “We’ve still got two immortals, a billion-year-old badass, and an inside man. Why wait?”

“Because this is different than Merrick Pharmaceuticals, Ms. Freeman.” Copley rubs his eyes. “I had been working with Merrick for quite some time before I met any of you. Here, we’ll have to start from scratch. Just because I have old friends in the agency doesn’t mean I can waltz you into a high-profile federal investigation.” 

“Right,” Joe says bitterly. “Guess all the CIA’s experience with kidnapping people and experimenting on them in labs doesn’t count for much.” 

Copley inclines his head. “I still say caution is the better route. Andromache is mortal now” - Andy shoots him an icy glare - “and whatever happened to Mr. di Genova has taken nine hundred years away from him. Speaking for myself and Ms. Freeman, we don’t have that many years to lose.” 

“Ms. Freeman can speak for herself, thanks.” Nile crosses her arms. “And who’s to say we’re not risking _more_ by waiting around? 

“ _Belìn!”_

A loud metallic grating sound makes them all turn around. Nicolò has somehow managed to activate the garbage disposal and is frantically pulling handfuls of dripping chainmail out of the sink. He looks at Joe, then at the whirring drain, then back at Joe with a guilty expression. “I don’t know what I did! It just started making that sound!” 

Joe pushes himself from the kitchen table and walks over to the sink, switching off the garbage disposal and checking for loose metal. “As long as you don’t touch that little lever on the wall, you should be fine.” 

“If you say so.” Nicolò looks distrustfully into the drain, the wet chainmail soaking the front of his shirt. “Are you … alright? You sounded very angry earlier.” 

“I’m fine.” Joe takes a deep breath. “Mr. Copley just didn’t have any good answers for why you turned up in San Francisco.” 

Nicolò frowns across the room at Copley, who gives him a hesitant nod. “I’ve never seen him before in my life. How could he possibly know how I got here?” 

“You’ve met him before, you just don’t remember.” Joe gives Copley a frown of his own. “He used to work with our enemies, and now he’s paying off a debt he owes us.” 

“Ah,” Nicolò says quietly. 

_De-aging_ , thinks Joe helplessly. _De-aging_. All those years he lived with Nicky, all their shared sorrows and joys, completely lost to some bizarre science he can’t hope to comprehend. How could nine hundred years of life just … disappear? How could someone take away the person Nicky had worked so hard to become, just like that?

Copley gives another huge yawn. Nile puts a hand decisively on the table. 

“So can we actually feasibly do anything right now? Today?” she says, looking around the room.

“I have a meeting with Agent Aditi Burman at four this afternoon. She’s CIA, running point on the investigation to coordinate the locals and the federal response. But” - Copley pauses, purposefully meeting Andy’s unblinking stare - “I’m going to get some shut-eye before then, so that when I see her, I can at least _pretend_ to be a reasonable, sane man who lives in a reasonable, sane world.” His eyes flick in Nicolò’s direction. “The children from the lab are all in foster care. If you want to run down that lead, however far it goes, I can give you their caseworker’s contact information.”

“No. Give me the file on Reeve,” Andy says.

Simultaneously, Nile says, “I want to talk to - what was her name? The girl from Encino?”

“Sara Williamson,” Joe supplies, hopping up to sit on the counter close to Nicolò, just in case he triggers the disposal again. “Maybe she still has family down there. Might be worth calling the local Encino PD, too. I can help with that.”

Nicolò lifts the chainmail coif out of the sink, shaking it in a jangle of metal and spray of water. He sighs heavily. “This is hopeless. I fear the blood cannot be properly removed without sand, but we could at least try vinegar or piss for the rust.” 

Andy’s head drops back and she stares at the ceiling in exasperation. Then, in old Ligurian, “No piss today, Nicolò.” 

“He’s not wrong, boss,” Joe interjects mildly. “If we don’t treat it properly, that metal is going to -”

“I am _perfectly fucking aware_ of every single method humanity has ever invented to deal with rusting armor, thank you Joe,” she says in English, somehow striking a precise balance between displeased goddess and exhausted schoolmarm. “We are absolutely _not_ passing a bucket around the group to collect piss for Nicolò to clean his chainmail.” 

“Well. That’s my cue,” Copley says, rising to his feet. His facial expression is utterly inscrutable, the sort of nonjudgmental mask he probably perfected in CIA interrogation rooms. He pulls a manila folder out of his satchel and slides it to Andy. “Here’s the data on Reeve.” He nudges the tablet on the table. “Ms. Freeman, the files on the children are in the folder marked ‘Subjects.’ In the meantime, I’m already checked in at the Marriott down the street.” 

With uncanny speed, he’s halfway to the front door. Nile shouts at his back, “But we have a spare room here!”

“See you at four!” 

As suddenly as he came, Copley is gone.


	15. 1099

Blood stutters in Yusuf’s heart, air burns through his lungs, and his eyes open to the sight of the innkeeper’s face. Al-Badawi bends over him, holding a dagger to the base of his middle finger, preparing to cut it off and take his silver ring like a thief. Yusuf inhales violently and sits bolt upright, reaching for his belly where the soldier sliced him open hip to breastbone.

This development promptly causes al-Badawi to faint. He hits the floor beside the flickering oil lamp with a decisive thump. Yusuf sucks in another stinging breath, squinting at the blood-splattered floor and walls of their rented room. 

_I’m not dead. Again._

The novelty of immortality still hasn’t worn off; his thoughts are scattered, frantic. Yusuf isn’t a terribly vain man (only slightly, and not unjustifiably; he is quite handsome, after all) but for the sake of distracting himself from the traumatic memories of waking up after his last death, during the massacre in al-Quds, he allows himself to feel pissed off about the fact that his new clothes are a ruined, blood-soaked mess. 

His scimitar is gone, as are his saddlebags with all his supplies - coins, rope, food, everything. The only things left in the room are his tattered leather armor in a heap in the corner, and his small dagger cradled in al-Badawi’s slack fingers. 

The man groans on the floor, already stirring. As al-Badawi comes to, Yusuf seizes the dagger, pressing a knee to his chest and the blade to his throat. 

Eyes wider than two full moons, he gibbers before finally managing, “Demon!” 

“Maybe I am,” Yusuf replies, blood thumping loud in his own ears. “Are my horses still in the stable?”

Al-Badawi manages a panicked nod. “One remains, y-y-yes!”

“That was your payment for selling me out? A single horse? Your negotiation skills are shit.”

“There was also m-m-my share of the ransom.” 

_Ah, goddammit - Nicky!_

In the traumatic rush of revival, Yusuf’s Genovese shadow slipped his mind. 

With his dagger still to the innkeeper’s throat, he performs a quick series of mental calculations - after all, it isn’t as if Nicky is _dead_. He’s only a prisoner, which is _his_ problem, not Yusuf’s. Honestly, if he didn’t want to end up in a situation like this, he should never have come to al-Quds in the first place. Nicky hasn’t said much about his family, but he couldn’t have afforded his crossbow or his homicidal fieldtrip across the Mediterranean unless _someone_ financed him. There’s bound to be at least one misguided soul back in Genova who is rich enough to pay ransom and stupid enough to want Nicky back.

A horse waits for Yusuf in the stable. If he leaves al-Arish right now, he’ll be well into the desert by sunrise. The journey will be difficult, but he’ll make it to Cairo and take refuge with one of his father’s trading partners. They’ll give him food and new clothes. They’ll give him sympathy and awe when he regales them with a heavily modified tale about what happened in al-Quds. They’ll help him find passage home on a boat from Cairo. 

Nicky’s situation isn’t Yusuf’s problem. It really, _really_ isn’t. For a week now he’s been trying to rid himself of this goddamn Frank, with his dishwater-grey eyes and his lopsided grins. Finally Yusuf has his wish: he is free. 

Which is all well and good, except Nicky wouldn’t have been in al-Arish if Yusuf hadn’t decided to bring them here. Nicky wouldn’t have been kidnapped if he hadn’t concocted the cover story about the ransom. What if Nicky’s captors discover his secret, and they keep him as a novelty instead of selling him home? 

Fuck. 

_Fuck._

“That’s _my_ ransom to collect.” The blade trembles in Yusuf’s fist, white-knuckled with fury - at himself, at Nicky, at fate. A bead of blood blossoms on al-Badawi’s neck, where the dagger point pricks skin. “If you tell me where they took the Frank, I’ll leave you unconscious. If you refuse, I’ll drag you to the entrance of Jahannam and throw you inside myself.”

* * *

Yusuf picks his way through the dark, empty streets of town, leading two horses - his own dun mare from al-Quds and a gelding he liberated from al-Badawi’s stables. Before he knocked the man unconscious and left him behind at the inn, he made him repeat the directions to Nicky’s kidnappers several times: He’s being held in a small building in the southeast corner of al-Arish, near the city walls. 

Apparently he was kidnapped without the Fatimid commander’s knowledge, a little side hustle this squad of soldiers decided to run on their own, _Alhamdullilah._ If Nicky was a prisoner inside the fort … well, the logistics of that don’t bear thinking about. 

Even though Yusuf isn’t singlehandedly storming a fort, what he’s about to do is still insane. He _knows_ it’s insane. 

Just like in the desert, when Nicky wouldn’t stop following him, Yusuf hears the voices of his friends in the madrasa: Yusuf _al-Tayyib_. Yusuf the gentle. Yusuf the generous. Yusuf who would never be a warrior, because he never wanted to fight. 

Even after the first time he killed another man, when he was twenty-one years old and the Genovese war fleet landed in Mahdia, he never developed a taste for it. Perhaps Nicky was old enough to have sailed in that war fleet. Did their paths cross, so many years ago? Had they almost killed each other in the streets of his hometown, only to finish the job a dozen years later on the other side of the Sahara?

_Al-Tayyib? No. Yusuf the gullible, more like. Yusuf the foolish, who ought to stop letting myself get dragged into other people’s problems - first in al-Quds, and now here. Yusuf the daft, who ought to be halfway to Cairo by now instead of wasting any more time on this Genovese motherfucker._

He doesn’t particularly want to kill the soldiers who took Nicky, even if they did kill him first. During the short trip to this secret building and the soldiers hidden there, Yusuf has concocted a clever plan to convince them to hand Nicky over without any bloodshed. 

A clever plan. A _genius_ plan. A plan so shrewd and cunning that they will be writing poems of his epic heist for years to come. 

Yusuf picks up a rock, hefts it a few times, then throws it as hard as he can over the door. 

A sad little puff of dust rises from the ground. There is a distinct lack of men coming to investigate. There is an even more distinct lack of soldiers pouring dramatically out of the door. 

_Damn it_. 

Frustrated, Yusuf slumps back against the wall, tucking the dagger into his belt. There are at least three soldiers inside. Even if he can come back from the dead, he doesn’t like his odds. He could scream _fire_ or _thieves_ , but that would fail the moment it became clear there were neither. He can’t try his usual trick of acting casual and strolling in like he owns the place - the kidnappers will know his face, and his clothes are covered in blood. And at any moment, someone might - 

“Hello?” 

Yusuf’s heart stops. 

Peering cautiously around the corner of the building is a man. _No_ , Yusuf amends to himself, heart sinking. _A boy_. Tall, but with the awkward gangliness of someone only just coming into their adult height. A tunic too big at the shoulders and too short at the sleeves. The proud beginnings of stubble on his chin. In the boy’s hands is a coiled length of rope.

A thousand fears race through Yusuf’s head as the boy approaches, finally resolving themselves into a single, reckless idea. 

The boy stops a cautious few feet away. “Are you alright?”

Yusuf lets out a loud groan of pain and topples forward on the ground, sprawling so that the bloodstain down the front of his tunic becomes visible.

“ _Fuck!_ ” The boy drops the rope and stumbles back, staring in horror.

“Help me,” Yusuf moans, slurring the words. “ _Help me_.” 

“I … I …” The boy fumbles for the rope, holding it clutched before him like a talisman as he edges towards Yusuf. “What happened?” 

_Sell the part_. Yusuf bites deep into his tongue, letting the blood dribble out of his mouth. He puts both hands on the ground and drags himself forward, letting the boy see that he isn’t holding a weapon. “I was stabbed … there was a thief …”

Uncertainty flits for a brief instant over the boy’s face. Yusuf lets out another groan and tries to look as pitiful as possible. “I can’t die in the street … please, help me ...”

“Help?” The boy blinks stupidly, staring at the drops of blood on the ground. “Help? Oh, yes!” He runs forward to take Yusuf’s arm. Yusuf keeps a hand pressed against his stomach to hide the wound that isn’t there, leaning most of his weight on the eager boy’s shoulders as he is hauled roughly to his feet. 

“Bless you,” Yusuf says weakly, doing his best impression of Nicky’s cow-eyed gaze. The minute they are free, Yusuf is stabbing the Frank straight in his stupid, ugly face. “May Allah reward you.” 

“That is a lot of blood,” the boy wheezes - he cannot possibly be older than sixteen - as they hobble around the corner towards the door. “How many times did they stab you?”

Yusuf moans in response and lets his feet stumble heavily on the cobblestones. Hopefully the horses are well-trained enough to stay where he left them. 

“Hey!” the boy shouts, in a voice that cracks in the middle. “Mahmud! _Cousin!_ Let me in!”

Muffled sounds of cursing from inside, then an irritated voice. “Just leave the rope at the door!” 

“I can’t!” The boy puffs up with righteous fervor. “There is a man out here who needs help!” 

“If you found a drunk lying in the street, leave him there too.” The voice - Mahmud, apparently - sounds like he is talking through a severe cold. “Serves him right.” 

“ _Fuck_ , I wish I were drunk right now,” moans a second voice. “How are we going to explain what happened to Ilyas?”

“Why don’t you suggest something helpful instead of whining about it?” snaps a third voice.

The boy stamps his foot impatiently. “I’m _telling_ you, I’ve got him right here! There’s blood all down his front!”

“And I’ve still got that stupid teapot you paid for that will grant me wishes if I polish it.” Mahmud again. “So what?”

“I saw you polishing it the other day,” mutters the third voice. 

“Shut up! All of you!” snaps Mahmud. “Go away, Malik. We’re not letting you in.” 

The boy - Malik, apparently - drops the coil of rope and hammers on the door with his fist. “He’s _dying_! There was blood over the whole street!”

“ _You’ll_ be over the whole street if you don’t stop yelling!”

Malik sets his chin angrily, ignoring the threat with the ease of long practice. Yusuf feels an odd surge of fondness. “I don’t care whatever shitty secret meeting you’re having in there, I’m not leaving until he gets some help!” 

More cursing, then a long heated conversation. Yusuf takes a deep breath and steels himself just as the door is flung open in their faces. 

A small room, bare of furniture but for the rug on the floor, lit with a single guttering lamp. An angry face with a broken nose, quickly blanching to horrified pallor in the moonlight - Mahmud. Two men, one with his head in his hands and one with a hasty bandage on his arm - Voice Two and Voice Three. The lamp sat between them. And against the far wall, gagged, bound hand and foot, sitting straight up with an expression of growing joy - Nicky.

Mahmud screams. 

Yusuf screams back. Mostly because he is terrified out of his mind, but also so his ears don’t burst. 

“ _Demons!”_ Mahmud shrieks, flailing back into the room. “Demons! The dead walk again!” 

The room erupts into chaos. Malik drops Yusuf like a sack of flour, bolting headlong into the night. Yusuf launches himself forward, ducking around Mahmud and giving the lamp a good hard kick. The lamp flies forward, crashing against the stone wall and igniting the spilled oil in a sudden, bright blaze. Both of the other soldiers jump up from their seats, also shouting. The one with the bandaged arm scrambles backwards, kicking out a leg and managing to trip Mahmud, who falls yelling down into a tangle of elbows and knees. The despairing one claws for the door, clearly too frightened to deal with any more fights tonight. 

Mahmud struggles out of the mess of legs, looking wildly around in the hot light of the burning oil. Yusuf seizes a handful of his tunic, wrenches him to eye level, and grins with what he knows is a mouthful of bloody teeth.

“ _Remember me?_ ”

The shrill twin screams that the two men let out are almost worth everything else. 

Yusuf shoves the still-shrieking Mahmud away, watching as both he and the other soldier run howling into the night. A faint crackle turns him around to the sight of Nicky, twisting his hips up so he can wrestle his bound hands under his legs from back to front. The oil fire is licking at his feet as he scoots awkwardly away from the blaze. 

Yusuf grabs his bare shoulders and hauls him backwards towards the door. “You idiot,” he rages. “You crazy, stupid idiot. All of this is your fault!” 

Nicky’s eyes are shining. He twists to get his feet under him with an awkward hop, and suddenly Yusuf has an armful of shirtless, faintly musty Frank. His first instinctual response is to fight, but Yusuf realizes that Nicky is … _embracing_ him. Nicky’s bound hands are hooked over Yusuf’s head, and his face is shoved into Yusuf’s neck. His shoulders are broad and warm and solid, and there is a faint scrape of stubble at his throat. 

“ _Mmmhmmf,”_ Nicky says emphatically through the gag. “ _Mmf mmmf._ ” 

“Shut up!” Yusuf wiggles out from under Nicky’s bound hands and grabs the edge of the floor rug, heaving it over the oil to smother the flames. “Now is not the time!” 

“ _Hgnmf._ ” Nicky reaches down to the bindings at his feet, tugging at the knotted material. Yusuf snatches the dagger out of his belt and drops to his knees, sawing frantically at the twisted cloth. Malik must have been sent to get more rope. 

A succession of crashes, then several indignant shouts from far down the street. The unfortunate Mahmud must have run into something. 

“We don’t have much time,” says Yusuf, willing the dagger to cut faster. “The horses are around the corner. We need to get out of here fast.” The cloth finally gives way. As he stands up, Nicky sticks out his bound hands to be freed next. These _are_ actually tied with rope - the rope that Yusuf bought in the market earlier today, and that the soldiers stole when they took everything else. 

“I _said_ , we don’t have time!” Yusuf seizes the dangling end of the rope and yanks him toward the door. “Let’s go!” 

Nicky leans back, digging in. Yusuf whips around to find the other man frantically _mmf!_ -ing and nodding toward the pile of supplies in the corner. Saddlebags, bulging with Yusuf’s other purchases; weapons, their swords and crossbow, plus a few blades left by the panicked soldiers.

With a frustrated growl, Yusuf darts over and throws the saddlebags over his shoulder, shoves the crossbow and quiver of bolts into Nicky’s bound arms, and grips the swords before dashing into the street. 

Around the first corner, a trembling, determined Mahmud waits with a bow and arrow. Fixated on finding the horses, Yusuf doesn’t see him until it’s too late. Nicky is more observant - and faster. Even a half-step behind him, with his arms bound and full of weaponry, he seizes Yusuf’s sleeve and yanks him sideways, angling himself into the line of fire instead. Maybe he makes another one of those muffled sounds of warning from behind the gag, but it’s cut off by the arrow that lodges neatly through his neck. 

The tip, drizzling crimson, points accusingly at Yusuf’s chest. Nicky’s gaze locks with his as he chokes on the blood collecting in his throat, dammed up by the gag. He drowns on it as he bleeds out, the life draining from his pale eyes as he slumps forward and dies in Yusuf’s arms. 

Yusuf has killed this Frank dozens of times since they first met. He’s done it intentionally, over and over again. He has relished watching his spark of life gutter out and standing over his helpless body afterward. Seeing Nicky die by someone else’s hand is a different experience altogether. It ignites an unexpected, possessive fury that rests cold across Yusuf’s shoulders and crackles hot through his joints. 

The sheer _fucking hubris_ of this soldier. The raw _nerve_! 

Down the street, Mahmud is trying to nock another arrow. 

_I’ll drag you to the entrance of Jahannam and throw you inside myself,_ Yusuf said to the innkeeper not long ago. This time, he doesn’t bother speaking the threat aloud, because it isn’t a threat. It’s a decision he has made, a promise to be fulfilled. He’s moving before another conscious thought can form in his head. 

He drops Nicky’s corpse, drops everything but his scimitar, drawing it from its sheath as he charges forward. Mahmud stumbles a few steps in alarm and whirls around to run. Yusuf seizes his turban, fingers finding his forehead, and draws his head sideways, blade slicing across his neck. The soldier collapses, leaving his turban behind in Yusuf’s clenched fist. 

Already stirring by the time he returns, Nicky is curled on his side and choking again as he plucks ineffectively at the arrow tip still jutting from his throat. He’s trying to pull it out, to stop himself from dying once more, but it’s slick with blood and already moving of its own accord. The muscles and sinews in his neck are ejecting it as they knit themselves back together, but the arrow is long and the process will probably take a while - a few deaths’ worth of waiting. 

Yusuf falls to his knees in front of the other man. He rests a hand to his forehead, partially a gesture of comfort and partially to hold him still for what’s about to come next.

“I’m sorry for this,” he says. Nicky’s wide eyes hold his, full of trust and understanding. Yusuf grips the longer, fletched end of the arrow protruding from beside his spine, and he yanks in a quick, sharp motion, pulling it free. 

Nicky dies again. 

As Yusuf waits for him to revive, he removes the gag and unties his wrists. He rolls him onto his back, uselessly arranging his hands on his chest for no particular reason except that it might be more comfortable. He swallows a sour lump of worry that maybe this time, the Frank won’t come back. The lump lodges in his gut and takes root there like a weed; he cares about whether Nicky wakes up. He doesn’t only want him to come back, he _needs_ it. 

The other man coughs and stirs, sucking in a sharp breath. Yusuf sits back on his heels and frowns at him, awash with relief and simultaneously furious with himself, because this is … this is _not_ what he wants to feel, not _any_ of it. 

He doesn’t have time to ponder these contradictory thoughts and emotions, because at least two other soldiers are still somewhere in these streets, perhaps on their way to the fort to summon reinforcements. 

“Let’s go,” he says, offering a hand. 

Nicky takes it, and they rise together. Without another word, moving as if with the same mind, they collect their supplies scattered in the street. They mount their horses and leave al-Arish side by side.


	16. 1099

Maybe Allah has finally bestowed an actual blessing on Yusuf, or maybe it’s the fact that Nicky had an arrow tip through his esophagus this morning, but the Frank doesn’t speak for a long while. They ride along the beach, hoofbeats blending into the pound of the surf as the sun rises behind them, casting long shadows on the sand ahead. 

A few hours after sunrise, they stop to sort out their jumbled supplies. In spite of a long ride shivering in the cold pre-dawn desert without a shirt, Nicky hasn’t complained once. Yusuf unwinds the sash from his waist and pulls off his bloody, sliced tunic. He tosses it to the other man without a word, keeping only his undershirt for himself. Then he ties the sash back in place and arranges the dead soldier’s turban on his head. Nicky puts the tunic aside with a nod of acknowledgement, and he sets about sorting out their weapons. 

As he checks over his crossbow, he says mildly, “You are angry, but not at me.”

 _Things This Fucking Frank Shouldn’t Know._ Yusuf hates that he can read him so easily. He refuses to turn around, because if he sees that face again, he might end up shouting, which would only confirm the other man’s assessment. _Unless this Frank is a_ truthful _Genovese motherfucker, instead of a garden-variety_ lying _Genovese motherfucker, and he really has known me for a thousand years._

“How much food did the soldiers leave in the saddlebags?” Yusuf asks, because it’s easier to simply ignore Nicky’s comment about his emotional state, and breeze past the idea that so much of his bizarre behavior would make sense if his crazy claims were true. 

“Hmm, enough for a week, if we ration,” he replies. “That should get us to … oh. Oh! What is the name? It has been gone for so long, I have forgotten.”

“What has been gone?” Yusuf finally gathers himself, and turns around to look at him.

Nicky’s face is scrunched in thought, his mouth twisting as he strains to find a word. “The port city east of Said. It will turn dry as a bone in a hundred years.”

“I have never heard of Said,” Yusuf says, voice flat. “But we are going to Pelusium.” 

The other man snaps his fingers, his expression brightening. “Yes, Pelusium is the one! We can find a ship there, and we still have plenty of coin to pay for passage.”

“To Mahdia.”

“Or Cairo,” Nicky chirps. Yusuf shoots him a dark look. He shrugs in reply, his lips curling into one of those subtle smiles. He’s acting obnoxiously happy for a man whose day began with a kidnapping and multiple murders, and who is now facing another week traveling in desert extremes without adequate clothing. 

They finish seeing to the horses and sorting supplies in silence. Afterward, Nicky strips naked with a casual familiarity and unselfconscious vulnerability that leaves Yusuf’s cheeks blazing. With a single glance in Yusuf’s direction, carrying all of his clothes, he marches into the Mediterranean up to his waist. Suddenly he dives forward, pale ass flashing above the waves before he dunks his head and disappears completely. Re-emerging nearby in a halo of droplets, he shakes the water from his short hair. 

Yusuf busies himself by checking the straps on his horse’s saddle for the third time. 

“You’ll itch all day, if you don’t wash the blood from your skin and clothes,” he calls over the sound of the surf. He sets about scrubbing the filthy tunic, briskly rubbing the fabric together. “It isn’t a hammam in al-Arish, of course, but the water is warm. It feels good.”

“Maybe I’d rather wear blood than salt.” 

“You always say that,” says Nicky fondly. “Except it’s usually the other way around.”

“Right. In the future.” 

Nicky smiles. 

The Mediterannean rolls in and out. Nicky splashes around, water rolling off his pale shoulders without a care in the world. Yusuf busies himself with the very important and all-consuming task of _not_ watching Nicky, trying to ignore the urge to get into the water himself and feel the blood washing off with the waves. It does itch, after all. On his chest, where it dried after Mahmud stabbed him in the inn. On his arms, where Nicky died saving him. On his hands, where he grabbed Mahmud and slit his throat. 

Mahmud. Who had a job and a life and three friends good enough to take on a risky venture with him. Mahmud, who had a young and foolish cousin who trailed after him, nagging to be included. The Fatimids are no intimate friends of his. Yusuf remembers the stories of his father, his grandfather; the inherited memories of raids and battles and shifting alliances, a slow, clawing retreat to the coast. Sharp, fierce conflict, springing from a thousand fine cracks running from Baghdad to Marrakesh that seemed only to multiply with each generation. 

And yet Mahmud ought to be closer to him than Nicky - for a shared faith, if nothing else. After all, he did nothing but kill an enemy. An invading Frank. Which Yusuf has done himself, dozens of times over. 

The Frank in question wades out of the surf, wringing out the tunic in his hands. The bloodstain is still darkly visible on the front. Yusuf’s blood. From where Mahmud plunged a sword through his chest for the ransom he thought Nicky would bring him.

_How long has it been since you prayed, son of Ibrahim? Longer than since you last died._

The fury roars within him again. Fucking _Nicky_. This is all his fault. Marching in on the vanguard of a pillaging army, turning Yusuf’s life upside-down, filling him with this storm of feelings that he can’t understand and doesn’t want. Feelings that he now knows from the blood on his skin that he will not be able to escape. 

“Let’s go,” Yusuf says shortly, swinging himself up into the saddle. “We need to put more distance between us and the town.” 

“We should,” says Nicky, stretching like a contented cat (Yusuf is not looking. He’s _not._ ) and grabbing his trousers. “But we have a little time. If we ride at the same pace we did before al-Arish, we should be clear by the time the Fatimid relief force crosses the Sinai.”

“The relief -” Yusuf bites his tongue, inwardly kicking himself. Of course. The relief force from Cairo. Al-Afdal Shahanshah. The vizier would not let al-Quds go so easily. In all the shock and turmoil of his new, apparently unending life, Yusuf had forgotten that the wider world was still moving.

Nicky was still talking. “If we avoid main routes and keep to the hills, we should be able to pass unseen to Pelusium.”

“I’m sure we will,” says Yusuf bitterly.

Nicky’s fingers pause on the drawstring of his trousers. “He killed you, Yusuf,” he says quietly, looking up at Yusuf in the saddle. “He killed you for money. You do not have to celebrate his death, or count it as a victory. But you need not mourn him, either.”

“And who are you, to tell me who I should mourn?” snarls Yusuf, rounding on NIcky. “He was a soldier, fighting an enemy, and your people came onto his land and killed one of his friends! The innkeeper told me!” The urge to hit something, to run, to fling himself down and demand that Nicky _fight_ him is almost unbearable. “Is this going to be my life now? Killing other Muslims for my enemies, until I can’t tell friend from foe? Is that what I do, for the next thousand years? No wonder we are friends in the future.” 

It takes a long minute for Nicky to reply. 

“I have many things I need to atone for,” Nicky says, his voice heavy with pain. “I know that. Many deaths weigh on my soul. But I will not stand idly by and watch you die, Yusuf al-Kaysani. That is one thing I cannot do.” 

Yusuf turns away, digging his nails into his palms. The wind whips through the thin material of his shirt, whispering against the dried blood. He hopes, suddenly and fiercely, that Malik made it safely home. 

Neither of them say the words, but the knowledge hangs unspoken between them anyway. Yusuf cannot stand by and watch Nicky die, either. 

* * *

As they get closer to Pelusium, they begin to see more people - farmers, herders, fishermen going to and fro over the waves. Nicky tries as much as he can to steer them back from the coast, keeping close to the shadows of the hills and far away from well-trod paths. The rhythm of traveling with Yusuf is as familiar as the feel of a sword hilt. They have crossed the Sinai peninsula together so many times - with Quỳnh, with Andy, with Booker, and with each other. 

Quỳnh. _Quỳnh_. Older sister, Andromache’s beloved, fierce and beautiful and laughing in the way that she loved to laugh when the tides of fortune rose up against her. He could see her, now, in the living world. He could go to her and feel the shape of her in his arms, the scent of her hair against his cheek. _Move faster, you big ox_ , she would laugh as she disarmed him in sparring yet again. _You are too slow with that heavy chunk of iron. You need to dance!_

He will see her dancing again, Nicky vows. With Andy. He will see her smile again. 

Yusuf allows the gentle steering without comment. Nicky’s quiet suggestions to _move left_ or _follow this valley_ are taken with the same general moody silence that has followed them since al-Arish. It isn’t the wary watchfulness of their journey from Jerusalem, but it isn’t welcoming, either. Nicky’s presence is still clearly troubling him. So are the dreams of Andy and Quỳnh. Nine hundred years of sleeping in Joe’s arms has made Nicky the world’s foremost expert on when Yusuf al-Kaysani is having trouble sleeping. 

It is something at least, Nicky tells himself, that they are moving forward together. There has been no more talk of _leaving you behind_ , or passage for one. There hasn’t been much talk at all. Yusuf doesn’t speak to him except in short, terse words to cover the absolute necessities. Nicky catches himself reaching out constantly - to help Yusuf up in the mornings, to nudge his shoulder when he frowns, to soothe him when he twitches in his sleep. It’s not only the touch he craves. He misses the easy words of love, the smiles, the fulfilment of a thousand little habits Nicky didn’t realize he had cultivated that were all designed to bring Joe’s smile. Joe wasn’t meant to be a silent creature. 

_You can speak to me_ , Nicky thinks, looking at the tired slump of Yusuf’s shoulders in front of him as they set up camp for the night. _You don’t have to keep it inside. You don’t have to bear this alone_. 

Yusuf, of course, says nothing as he sits heavily down on the ground with a sigh. Nicky’s nightly offer to take first watch is met with the same jerky nod as it has been since al-Arish. He is looking out from the hollow they have chosen to the sea, a vast grey-blue plane in the dim light of the setting sun. His beard is growing long again. Nicky knows exactly how it would feel against his face, if they kissed right now. 

“Tell me about the future.” 

Nicky starts. “What?”

“Tell me about the future.” Yusuf waves a hand impatiently. “You might as well.”

“I thought you didn’t believe me,” Nicky says carefully.

“I still don’t. But there is nothing else to do, and it is about to get cold, and we can’t light a fire because someone might see. So.” He makes a vague gesture towards Nicky. “Talk.” 

_Don’t scare him off_. “You wouldn’t rather hear about two beautiful women instead?” 

A familiar glare. “As long as I am stuck on a journey with a madman, I might as well learn more about the nature of his madness. I don’t like traveling around with a total stranger at my back.” 

“We’re not strangers,” Nicky responds automatically. 

“We might as well be.” Yusuf smiles - a bitter, sarcastic smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Look at us. We have killed each other. We have killed _for_ each other. And yet somehow, you know everything about me but I know almost nothing about you. Except that you come from Genova, you fight like the devil, and you have a brother named … named ...”

“Luciano.” 

“Yes. Him. Whatever.” Yusuf crosses his legs, settling in. “So talk. Fair is fair.” 

Nicky leans back on his elbows and tips his face toward the Milky Way. Nine hundred and twenty-two years of history, dozens of lifetimes with Joe, as many moments of existence as there are grains of sand in this desert … where does he even begin? 

Certainly not with Luciano, of all the miserable creatures.

Midway through his second exhale, it dawns on him - the perfect place to start, the exact thing to say. The most important thing he can possibly tell Yusuf about himself, about them - about the future. Sitting up, Nicky squares his shoulders toward the other man and opens his mouth, ready to begin.


	17. 2021

“The future is bullshit,” Nicolò says, arms crossed. “ _This_ is bullshit.”

He and Joe are crowded into the washing closet in the third-floor bedroom. Joe pulled the little door down on the latrine, transforming it into a chair, and told him to sit. Then he fished a shiny black object out of a leather bag and brandished it at him in a semi-threatening manner. 

“I’ll go first,” Joe says, his tone amiable even if his grip on the object is anything but. “We agreed to this last night, so we’re both doing it.”

“I was drunk! And I did not know that shaving would involve … whatever _that_ is.”

“It’s an” - and here he says words Nicolò doesn’t understand, choppy syllables of the language he speaks with the others in the house. With a huff, he tries to translate. “A blade for cutting beards easily.” 

“Witchcraft.”

Joe snorts. “You don’t believe that. You really did think the car was witchcraft, but not the razor. I can tell by your tone of voice.” His thumb moves against the side of the purported blade, and the black object suddenly buzzes and vibrates as if it has been possessed by a hive of angry bees. Nicolò manages not to flinch, but it’s a near thing. “You’re being petulant. Just admit you don’t want to shave, if you don’t want to shave. I won’t force you.”

In fact, Nicolò _would_ very much like to shave. Even though he failed at most of the priestly virtues during his stint at the abbey of San Fruttuoso, he found several things to his liking there - the quiet peace of laboring over Latin texts, the ready abundance of men, and the duty of keeping himself clean-shaven. He’d happily grown out his tonsure after he returned home, but kept in the habit of shaving his beard until he boarded one of Il Testadimaglio’s ships for the Holy Land, and that level of personal grooming became too difficult. 

Nicolò has never known a mirror as sharp as the one in this little white bathing closet. He can hardly stand to see his own reflection so crystal clear; he is perfectly aware that his unkempt beard makes him look like a wild Varangian.

Joe grabs a metal bucket from the floor and holds it against his own chest with one arm, swiping the bee-razor across his jaw. Curls fall from his face into the container below, and in a matter of moments his beard transforms from shaggy to neatly trimmed. 

_Perhaps the bee-razor is not bullshit,_ Nicolò thinks begrudgingly, but he does not admit as much aloud. 

Joe presses a button, soothing the bees inside the razor so they grow quiet, and he scrubs his fingers across his cheeks to shake loose stray hairs. “You seem like you’re feeling better.”

“After so many bottles of wine, I expected a hangover this morning,” Nicolò replies. “But I do not even suffer a headache.”

“Ah.” Joe stops, staring at himself in the mirror, before turning on the silver handle to rinse his hands in the basin. “That’s because of the healing. You won’t ever have a hangover again.”

“Really?” Nicolò sits up straighter, leaning forward with interest. Finally, in the midst of nonstop madness, some good news!

“Yes, really.” Joe turns off the water, dries his hands, and then presents Nicolò with the dormant bee-razor. “That wasn’t what I meant, though. I was talking about our visit to the priest this morning.”

Nicolò stares at the thing in Joe’s hand, then his face. It is a pleasant face, well-proportioned, prone to smiling, full of warmth. Undeniably handsome, with his beard neatly trimmed and his hair a halo of soft curls. His eyes are another matter entirely; he regards Nicolò as if all his choices are a foregone conclusion. His gaze holds a patient, encyclopedic understanding that unnerves and frightens Nicolò - as if Joe knows him so deeply, he could pick him apart atom-by-atom and then reassemble him in perfect order, from memory. As if Joe has examined every secret shame etched into the dark corners of his existence, and adores him anyway. 

What is one to do, when presented with such a man? An infidel, offering forgiveness and acceptance with the sort of grace on par with God and all His saints? A potential lover whose touch is a sin, whose beliefs are blasphemy, whose soul is damned? 

Queasy terror washes over Nicolò. If there was a window in this bathing closet, he would fling himself out of it again into the streets of San Francisco. He’d do it a thousand times, to save himself and to save Joe from the condemnation of such a union. 

Bee-razor still in his long, elegant fingers, Joe cocks an eyebrow at him and grins. “I promise, this isn’t dangerous.”

 _This is mortally dangerous_ , Nicolò thinks back at him, swallowing heavily. Cornered without a window to escape through, he plucks the bee-razor from Joe’s hand, careful not to touch him. Joe shuffles sideways, making room in front of the basin. When Nicolò gazes into the mirror, Joe places the metal bucket in his other arm. 

“Just touch the blue spot on the side,” he says encouragingly, hovering at his shoulder. 

Nicolò fumbles and nearly drops the thing when it buzzes to life. His face scrunches in anticipation of pain as he lifts it to his jaw, but there is none. Instead, his unkempt beard falls into the metal bucket with only a few clumsy swipes. It’s like peeling away a layer of himself, removing evidence of his journey to Jerusalem and all the horrible things that happened there. 

When he’s done, he stares at his reflection, scratching at his remaining whiskers. Uneven and patchy - nothing like Joe’s thick, impressive curls - but still lingering on his cheeks, nonetheless. 

“Here. You can finish the job, if you’d like,” Joe says, reaching into the leather bag again. He pulls out a small tin that holds a round piece of soap, and a corresponding brush made of soft animal hair, and a blade that Nicolò _does_ recognize - a proper razor, a simple blade that folds neatly in half. 

He seizes it with an expression of incredulity and betrayal, brandishing it like a dagger. Joe doesn’t flinch; he doesn’t react as if there’s any threat at all. “You had this the _whole time_ , and you made me use witchcraft instead?!” 

With a loud _tsk_ , he tosses the bee-razor at the other man, who catches it easily midair. 

Joe laughs, “You liked it, though!” 

He isn’t wrong. Nicolò tries very hard to keep his face stern, with only partial success. Joe bumps into him with easy familiarity, leaning over to wet the soap in the tin and the brush, his hip against Nicolò’s as he deftly swirls the bristles and makes bubbles. He works so quickly, Nicolò doesn’t have time to move away before he turns and lifts the foamy brush, dabbing soap onto his face.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Joe says, attention fixed on his jaw. He’s frozen, breath caught in his chest at the intimacy in this moment, the ease with which Joe has stepped into his space and his personal grooming routine. He moves the way Nicolò’s brother Vincenti and sister-in-law Agnesia do around each other, not concerning themselves with permission because marriage is like that, built on gestures of casual familiarity. He smells nice in a way that leaves Nicolò flustered, like the soap that made him sneeze and fall down in the shower yesterday. “I asked if you are feeling better, after our trip to church this morning?”

Nicolò’s eyes turn upward to the ceiling. He offers a brief prayer to the Blessed Virgin, asking that she grant a miracle and send the ceiling crashing down on both their heads, to save him from this conversation. “I don’t know.”

“Father Yorke said something about your penance, and devoting yourself to a charitable cause.” Joe dabs the other side of Nicolò’s jaw with the warm, foamy soap. “I know you don’t remember right now, but the last nine hundred and some-odd years, your life has been devoted to charitable causes. That’s what we do, you and me and Andy and …” a hairsbreadth of silence, an obvious omission before Joe finishes “... and now, Nile.”

Something in Nicolò wants to pry at the empty space, but he doesn’t know what will emerge if he does. “What kind of charitable causes?”

“All kinds.” Joe finishes brushing the lather down under Nicolò’s chin, flicking his wrist playfully up to leave a dab of white foam on the tip of Nicolò’s nose. “There are causes all over the world that can benefit from immortal help. Sometimes we save others from dangerous places no one else can go. Sometimes we bring down powerful men who have gotten a little too comfortable in their towers. And sometimes we fight.” 

“Sometimes we fight.” Nicolò echoes, turning to the mirror and taking in the sight of his own face covered in foam. “Like in Jerusalem?”

Joe chuckles, although the sound isn’t quite as happy. “I think it would depend which one of us you asked. But yes. Sometimes when we choose a cause, it means joining an army.” 

Nicolò pauses in the act of raising the blade to his face, the razor suddenly heavy in his hand. He has few other skills to recommend him, it is true, but after the quiet morning in the church he can’t imagine happily taking up a sword again - much less in the name of devotion to faith. When Father Yorke had mentioned charitable causes, Nicolò had imagined something along the lines of feeding the hungry, giving to the needy - something that fit into his memories of life at the abbey. He had not thought that it would mean more blood. 

“It took you awhile to come to peace with your sword again.” Joe puts down the brush. “Call it penance, call it righteousness, call it love for those who have no swords of their own. We’ve done some good in this world, you and I.”

“And you?” asks Nicolò. He cannot meet his own reflection’s eyes in the mirror, so he looks at the razor in his hand. “Why do you fight? You don’t need to atone for … for how we met.” 

“Goodness doesn’t always need to come from pain, Nico.” Joe steps back against the wall, clearly giving Nicolò some space. “We must strive with our wealth and our souls in the path of God. What better way for me to spend my days?” 

The hardest thing, Nicolò thinks, is to meet Joe’s eyes when he is looking at Nicolò like that. That peculiar tender look that says a thousand things without saying anything at all. He can’t bear that look for long. Nicolò takes a determined grip on the razor and raises it to his cheek, pulling the skin tight as he carefully takes the first swipe. 

The stubble comes away, bit by bit. Soap in the year 2021 is incredibly fine, soft and scented and full of some kind of oil that lets the razor glide smoothly without harsh scraping. Bit by bit, Nicolò watches the face of a man he only vaguely remembers emerge - a slight frown, messy hair, deep-set haunted eyes that dart back and forth nervously as though looking for a way to escape. Nicolò sets his jaw impatiently and tilts his chin up, angling the razor delicately at the last of the stubble on his throat. He isn’t trying to be handsome. Setting aside the fact that he has no idea how to accomplish that great feat, he doesn’t want to think about who he would be handsome _for_. 

“Do you want me to get that part?” 

The razor slips, slicing a neat little nick into his skin. A trickle of scarlet runs down through the white foam. “What?” 

“Do you want me to shave that part?” Joe pushes off the wall and stands by the basin again, tutting at the patch of bloody soap. “It can be tricky.” 

Nicolò’s first instinct is to tighten his grip on the razor. “I’m used to doing it myself.” 

Joe blinks. “I”m just saying. It might be easier to avoid cuts from my angle.” 

_Could you do what he did?_ whispers a voice in Nicolò’s head. _Could you do what he is doing now? Could you embrace a mortal enemy in forgiveness, hold a blade to his throat and cut no more than the hair of his beard? Do you have that much kindness in you, soldier of Genova?_

Slowly, tentatively, he holds the razor out to Joe.

Joe takes it in his hand, then raises the other to cup Nicolò’s jaw. He smooths the skin carefully taut with his thumb, setting the blade just under the swell of Nicolò’s throat and starts shaving away the last of the stubble in neat little strokes. 

This close, with his face tilted up and his eyes to the ceiling, all Nicolò has to focus on is the sensations. The careful firmness of Joe’s palm against the side of his face, as though Nicolò were some precious thing that might fall and shatter into pieces on the ground. The sharp edge of the razor, right where the life runs closest to the skin. 

Joe cut his throat there, not so very long ago. 

“You know,” murmurs Joe, moving the razor carefully through the foam. “I did this for you a few days ago. Before all this happened, and you lost your memories.”

“ _Mmm_ ,” Nicolò manages in reply. 

“We were in Valparaíso.” The blade strokes a slow, easy path up his throat. “I told you that your kisses were getting scratchy, and you said …”

The blade pauses. Nicolò keeps his eyes on the ceiling as he listens to the sound of running water - Joe, rinsing off the foam and hair. “What?” he manages to get out. “What did I say?” 

Joe’s hand settles back on his chin, tilting Nicolò’s head back farther to get at the last patch of hair. “You said something very sweet and romantic, and then you got out a razor and shaved everything away except this … last … bit.” The razor scrapes in time with his words. “And then you asked me to help you, because you said it always felt better when I finished the shave.” 

The hands and the razor lift lightly away. Joe turns Nicolò’s face gently back towards the mirror, smiling again. “What do you think?”

_What does he think?_

Nicolò thinks that Joe’s hands felt good. Nicolò thinks that he never wants anyone to touch him ever again. Nicolò thinks that the man in the mirror looks lost and wild, that somehow in his strange new clothes and strange new surroundings he is turning into someone else. He wants to stay here forever. Or run far, far away. Maybe hide in a dark corner somewhere and not think about _scratchy kisses_ and shaving your face for someone you love. 

“Where is Valparaíso?” he blurts out.

A surprised laugh from Joe, which does _not_ help the turmoil in his chest. “Not in al-Andalus, if that’s what you were wondering. We’ll have to get Nile in here when we talk about the continents. She’ll enjoy it.” 

“Were we there to fight someone?”

“For once, no.” Joe dries and folds the razor with quick, economical motions, packing away the shaving supplies into the black leather bag. “It was just a holiday. A way for us to spend some time together alone.” 

“We do that a lot, then? Travel alone together?”

A warm smile. “For the first few years of our lives together, we did nothing else. Now,” Joe casts around, looking at the little white wash closet. “I think there might be a few hair ties left around here somewhere, if you want.”

There might be a few more bottles of liquor downstairs, Nicolò thinks. He can’t get a hangover, anyways.


	18. 2021

Nile squeezes her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose. Somehow, between training with thousand-year-old coaches and needing to fake her own death, she spends much less time looking at a screen than she used to. She supposes that she can’t exactly ruin her eyes anymore, but the headache she gets from too much pixelated text is apparently still a thing. 

_Honey, you’ll ruin your eyes if you don’t get off that phone!_

The grief for her family isn’t yet old, not on the scale of her new life. Nile takes a deep breath, presses her palms to her face, and lets the air out in a long, slow exhale. She can do this. She’s not alone. 

Speaking of which ...

A quick glance up reveals Andy on the phone in the next room, speaking in a language she doesn’t recognize. Since Copley only left one tablet, Nile was given the first turn at digital research while Andy did some reconnecting of her own. Although Andy has grudgingly adjusted to the internet, she still prefers her own black market networks when it comes to learning about a new target. 

Nile quickly pulls out her own phone, holding it under the table and scrolling through her messages. 

_From: Emo Bro_

She taps the screen, bringing it to a stop. 

In the timeless tradition of youngest family members worldwide, before his banishment Booker had defaulted to the role of group tech support. The first time she messaged him, a month after his exile, it was to ask for the Wi-Fi password at the Italian safehouse. 

It felt a little bit _wrong_ to contact him. Not exactly like betraying the others, but definitely like they shouldn’t know - so she hasn’t told them. 

Since that first message, she’s traded hundreds of texts with Booker, sporadic in frequency and wildly variable in length. Half the time, he’s so wasted he slips into French and she has to use Google Translate to decode his messages. Sometimes he sends her pictures of cute dogs from whatever city he’s skulking through. She responds with pictures of flowers and food, her outfits or new hairstyles, like he’s her private Insta audience, because why not? According to Andy she can’t have real social media anymore, so why can’t she have this instead? 

She never sends pictures of the others, though.

Nile hasn’t forgotten the fact that Booker was ready to sell her out to Merrick, too. She’d have been strapped to a gurney in a lab along with the others, if she hadn’t walked away outside of Copley’s. But she also knows what it is to fuck up and bear the weight of rejection in the aftermath. She remembers the cold, suspicious looks she got from Dizzy and Jay and the other women in her unit, the last day she was on base. Even though Joe laughed when she suggested letting Booker off with an apology, she wasn’t joking. For someone dealing with demons like Booker’s, isolation may be a fitting punishment, but it isn’t a restorative one. 

She certainly doesn’t _trust_ Booker any further than she can throw him, but she has decided it’s worth methodically laying groundwork for when his exile ends in ninety-nine years. Tactically speaking, it feels important. Because, well ... Andy is mortal now. She won’t be here forever. And as much as Nile genuinely adores Joe and Nicky - and they have embraced her as a younger sister, with unrestrained enthusiasm and affection - she doesn’t relish the idea of third-wheeling for eternity. 

Quasi-eternity. 

Whatever. She’s got a while. 

As a long-term strategy, she needs to make friends. When Andy isn’t around anymore, and Joe and Nicky disappear for their regular month-long fuckfests or whatever, she wants someone to go see a movie with. Or join Starfleet with. Or whatever it is they’re going to be doing in a hundred years. 

Plus she doesn’t have literally anyone else on the planet to text at this point, and she desperately misses sending dumb memes to Dizzy and Jay, and group texts with her mom and brother. If texting Booker keeps her from breaking down and messaging people she _really_ shouldn’t, well. That’s fine, then.

A while ago, Nile caught Andy alone and in an especially introspective and generous mood, and she finally asked what Booker was like when he wasn’t drunk and suicidal. Andy had paused for a long moment, taking a slow sip of limoncello. 

“Joe’s art is one thing - he’s really got a gift for words and still lifes, especially with Nicky as his muse. But Book ...” she had exhaled and leaned her chair back onto two legs, gesturing toward the Tuscan night sky “... he’s a different kind of artist. He can recreate _anything_ , from a Lascaux cave painting that will pass carbon-dating snuff, to a Sesshū Tōyō that Sotheby’s will authenticate and sell, to a Russian diplomatic passport that will get you invited to tea with the Queen of England. He’s financed so many of our missions with his work.” Her grin widened. “He gets so much _goddamn joy_ selling his pieces to rich assholes, taking their money and doing something better with it.” She’d paused, sniffing - maybe it was tears in her eyes, maybe just the reflection of moonlight. “When Book isn’t being a shithead, he’s a fucking genius.” 

Nile texted him from the airport in India to ask for the Wi-Fi password at the San Francisco safehouse. After a couple of single-letter messages that were clearly the result of fat thumbs and too much alcohol, he replied, _fkfadr1931_. Then, an hour later: _u_ _going homme?_ 🙃

She’s left him on read for two days. 

Obviously, Nile isn’t going to Chicago. But being back in the U.S. for the first time in ages … it feels nice. It has occurred to her how easy it would be to catch a flight, even if she hasn’t gone so far as to open any travel apps. 

Weighing just as heavily is the question of what the hell to _say_ to Booker. She can’t ignore him forever. She’s in the midst of the first major incident with her new immortal family since his exile, and … does he deserve to know what’s going on with Nicky? Would he even _want_ to know? If she says something and he _reacts_ in some way beyond just texting a reply, will that kick off a shitstorm with everyone else?

“We have juice, right?” Joe says.

Nile jumps, her phone clattering onto the floor and her cheeks flushing hot. 

Nicolò follows Joe into the kitchen, and her jaw drops - this isn’t the unkempt rat-man they’ve been dealing with for the last twenty-four hours. This is _proper Nicky_. He’s clean-shaven and wearing a cotton t-shirt and jeans, with his new pewter cross dangling from his neck. Nile recognizes his dutch braids as Joe’s handiwork, because Joe likes helping with her hair, too. 

Nicolò looks so _normal_ , even with the braids, she wants to get up and throw her arms around him. “Nicky, you’re so handsome!”

Joe translates and Nicolò beams, eyes on the ground as he rubs his knuckles against his jaw. He murmurs something in his old Italian dialect, and Joe laughs. “He says thanks.” 

Nile lets the obvious mistranslation pass. Nicolò comes over to pick up her phone from the floor and sits beside her at the table. He turns the device over in his hands and says something. 

Pulling out glasses for orange juice, Joe replies in old Ligurian. Then he lifts an eyebrow at Nile. “You want in on this juice action?”

“I’m good,” she replies.

“Your loss. It’s the pulpy kind.” Joe brings Nicolò a drink, and he shoots Nile a pointed look. “I’m going to check in with Andy.” 

_Ah, Nicolò-sitting duty._ She gives a little half-salute in acknowledgement, and Joe steps out of the room. 

Nicolò absently twiddles the phone between his fingers, watching the other man leave. Nile was so distracted by the new-and-improved Nicolò, she just now notices Joe’s close-trimmed beard and fresh clothes - tight, short-sleeved, designed to highlight his undeniably impressive body. 

Joe’s clothing choice is having the intended effect on Nicolò, who is also definitely _noticing_. But not in the way Nicky usually notices, with soft fondness, radiating self-assurance that he can and will lay claim to Joe’s body at the slightest provocation. Instead, Nicolò’s posture telegraphs morbid curiosity, his cheeks pink and his eyebrows drawn down fretfully.

“I’ll take that,” Nile says to distract him, plucking the phone out of his hands. He blinks and follows the movement, turning in her direction. “You don’t have much use for it, anyway. I don’t have any of your old-man crossword apps downloaded.”

With a long pause, and a glance toward Andy and Joe, Nicolò leans in and murmurs several long Ligurian sentences to her. Then he sits back with a conspiratorial nod, crossing his arms and looking for all the world like he’s just shared a massive secret. 

He seems … serious, but less fretful. 

God, that sounds nice. Nile wants to do the same thing, to let loose at least one of these thoughts that have been ping-ponging around her head - even if the person she shares it with doesn’t understand a word she says.

 _Especially_ then. 

On impulse, she unlocks the phone and pulls up her messages, pointing at Booker’s last few. “I’ve figured out Booker’s cipher, the code he uses to decide the Wi-Fi passwords at all our safehouses. It’s abbreviations for paintings he’s forged in the area.” She points to one of the last messages, _fkfadr1931._ “See this one? I think it’s referring to this painting at the museum of modern art here in town -” she taps open a browser, pulls up a picture “- Frida Kahlo, _Frieda and Diego Rivera_ , 1931. That’s fkfadr1931.” She leaves the phone on the table and sits back, mirroring Nicolò’s cross-armed pose. “He’s a sly sonofabitch.”

He leans forward, squinting at the painting on the screen, and then says something in Ligurian and pats her arm affectionately. It sounds like he says a name - something like Agnes? 

“No, I’m Nile,” she corrects gently, gesturing to herself. The words feel tight in her throat; her heart thumps with worry. She should stop wasting time thinking about Booker and focus on the problem at hand, and the research she’s supposed to be doing. 

Nicolò shakes his head, smiling, and waves his hand. His words come thick and fast, and she catches a few sounds that seem vaguely familiar, but he definitely says _Nile_ at least three times. 

“At least we don’t have to be reintroduced. Again.” Nile smiles back at him. “It’s nice to have you here, even if you’re … not you, at the moment. It’s nice that we can still talk.” 

Nicolò smiles again, then turns and looks back at her phone. He touches the screen hesitantly, eyebrows raising almost to his hairline as the image zooms in. Nile taps the phone to zoom back out. 

“I don’t know if I should tell him about what’s going on with you,” she muses. “Booker, I mean. It’s only been two days, and it looks like we have some solid leads, so no sense in getting him all freaked out if we can get your memories back before next week. But also … this is fucking _huge_ , man. Immortality was weird enough, but even Joe and Andy don’t know what’s going on, and they have like a billion years between them. I mean, what if this is happening to someone else?”

“Joe?” Of course _that’s_ the word that gets Nicolò’s attention. 

“Yeah, Joe.” Nile checks over his shoulder. The man in question is still deep in his own conversation with Andy. “I know that you guys were still really torn up over Booker when we left London. You needed some time to yourselves. I don’t want to bring all that back in on top of everything that’s happening to you. And honestly, _I’m_ not sure where my head is at on this.”

A slight frown, then another pensive few sentences as Nicolò steals a glance of his own. His face has that troubled, half-embarrassed look that is beginning to grow familiar. 

Nile sighs. Four kids. Four missing persons cases, going back over six months. And that was only the ones they _knew_ about. In a big city full of people, it would be easy for more to slip through the cracks. She didn’t want to stir up anything with Booker over nothing, but even one more functioning immortal on the team would help ...

“ _Me mànca cà._ ” 

“What?” Nile jerked out of her reverie, parsing the unfamiliar accent. “You … you miss something?” 

Nicolò looked out the window at the row of houses opposite; the swooping wires, the cracked paint, an old van with a neon marijuana leaf on the side putt-putting slowly by. He puts his chin in his hand and says something in a low, sad voice. Nile can’t understand, but she can relate.

“Yeah.” She reaches out and pats his arm, just the way he did for her. “I miss home too.” 

They look out the window together for a few minutes, Joe and Andy’s voices murmuring indistinctly in the background. Nile looks down at the painting of Frieda Kahlo on her phone. She’s never seen Booker paint, but she can imagine it - the gentle movements of brush on canvas, the vivid warm color of Frieda’s shawl flecked on his hands. His smile when he pulled _fkfadr1931_ off must have been quite something. 

Has she ever seen Booker _genuinely_ _smile_?

“You’re right,” Nile says finally. “Joe doesn’t need this on top of everything else. I’ll wait one more day. I don’t need to be bringing Booker into this until we’ve talked to the kids and Copley’s hooked up with his shady CIA people. Maybe we’ll figure out a way to get your memories back by then. And if things are still bad, I’ll let him know.” 

Nicolò gives her a reassuring nod, reaching up to adjust the fine chain on his cross. Nile does the same. She does feel better, even if neither of them understood a word.

“Good talk. We should do this again sometime.” Nile nudges the glass on the table towards him. “Drink your orange juice.” 

* * *

“How are you holding up?” Andy steps deeper into the little living room, turning them both away from Nile and Nicolò sitting at the kitchen table.

“De-aging? I mean really - _de-aging?_ ” Joe brings the glass of orange juice to his lips and drinks frantically, draining half of it in one gulp. It won’t help anyone if he starts spiraling again. 

“We don’t know if that’s what’s going on for sure,” says Andy soothingly, grabbing his wrist and bringing the glass back down. 

“I mean, shit,” Joe coughs. Something about being with Andy always brings out the youngest side of him. “I know it could be worse. I know we got lucky. He’s not dead, he’s not missing. He’s still my Nico, it’s just … distant.” 

“Pretty damn distant, I’d say,” says Andy wryly. “He was all over you the last time you wore this outfit, and now he’s just ogling from a distance.” 

Both of them look over their shoulders. Nicolò and Nile are talking softly, although Joe knows neither of them can understand each other. Nile shows him something on her phone, and Nicolò smiles. Joe looks quickly away. 

“But seriously Joe,” says Andy. “If you need to _not_ be okay, you should take the time now. The safehouse is clean, we’ve got some intel to work with, and Copley should be covering for us as far as the local agencies. There’s plenty of time to be stoic and square-jawed later. Joe, look at me,” Andy says softly as Joe ducks his head. “Remember, no more hiding it inside. Are you okay?’

_You do know our people hate each other, right?_

“Shit, boss,” Joe says weakly, collapsing heavily onto the couch. He lets his head fall into his hands. Andy sits down next to him and tucks an arm around his shoulders. “I know he doesn’t mean it. I know that whatever” - Joe waves a hand around in the air - “whatever shit just happened stole his memories. But sometimes he turns around, or he looks at me in just the right light, and it’s like he’s _back_ . Like Nicky, _my_ Nicky, is back with all his memories. And then I blink - and he’s gone. And I can’t help but think, what if we never -”

“Don’t go there, Joe.” Andy’s grip tightens. “We’re not going to go there right now.”

“I know that this isn’t about me. I know that he loves” - Joe swallows hard - “that he still cares about me somehow. Nicky would never turn away from me like that. But it hurts, you know?”

“I don’t know,” admits Andy, and Joe loves her and her stern honesty so much his heart aches. “But I do know that it’s hurting you.”

Joe tries to chuckle, although it comes out more like a choke. “Is this what breaking up with someone is like? Having to just watch someone turn away from you and feel like they’re cutting out your heart?”

“It isn’t easy,” says Andy quietly. “But like I said. You don’t have to be okay right now. None of this shit is okay. You’re not alone.”

“Thanks, boss.” Joe leans back against her arm, as they’ve done a thousand times in a thousand places over hundreds of years together. It feels good just to breathe her in - the smell of the conditioner she used in the shower is definitely Nile’s influence. No grey hairs yet, _mashallah_. Even if she is mortal now, Joe has never forgotten how it felt to suddenly fall under the shadow of that seemingly infinite age and strength. He leans gratefully into it now. “What have you got on Ethan Reeve?” 

“Not much. Reeve is the kind of rich that means he doesn’t need to go illegal. He has lunch with his asshole friends in an ivory tower somewhere, and the laws change to fit him.” Andy makes a face. “Looks like we’ll need to get answers from that end some other way. But I did get some answers about the box. VGL has legit offices in Paris, all above board - they do a lot of business in France shielding power plants. Turns out there was a request quite a while back for something more … personalized.”

“More personalized like … a box?” Joe looks over his shoulder at the black rock, which has remained on the counter in its cracked acrylic casing. He squints - surely the cracks weren’t as extensive the last time he checked. “They did a shitty job, if that was what they made to order.” 

“That wasn’t the only weird thing about it.” Andy’s voice was grim. “When a hush-hush request goes out for radiation shielding? On something small and portable that can be carried around by one person? That raises flags, no matter how quiet you try to be about it. My contact remembered the request, and she remembered where it came from because it got swallowed up by some American-sounding conglomerate - probably Reeve, working through a couple of middle men.” 

“Who made the request?” 

“That’s the thing.” Andy turns towards him, her eyes full of worry. “The box request came from a shell company - a paper front for doing business. But my contact didn’t know the shell name from the nuclear power world. She remembered it because it was reported to be a front for _artifact smuggling._ ”


	19. 1099

“You absolutely cannot stand beard burn.” 

This is not _exactly_ the first thing Nicky means to say, to convince Yusuf of all the gorgeous promise the future holds, but his nerves have got the better of him. He’s all too aware of the potential disaster ahead if he fumbles this conversation, and judging by Yusuf’s facial expression, he isn’t making his case right out of the gate. 

_Shit._ Joe can weave words into a tapestry, pulling together threads until they create something so compelling one cannot help but snatch it from the loom and pull it about one’s shoulders and live inside of it. He could easily convince himself of the beauty of what’s to come. After all, he’s very good at talking himself into all sorts of things, like regularly flinging himself off of buildings or eating a triple helping of phall curry. 

Trying to channel his inner Joe, Nicky flings himself off of this particular high place: “You hate beard burn, and every year when the first deep cold sets in, you cook the most perfect bissara the world has ever known. Andromache - the woman from our dreams with green eyes - she says the winter cannot come, until you have made your bissara.” 

Yusuf doesn’t react. The cold night air stings Nicky’s throat; his face prickles warm with blood and nerves. _Sant’Antonio, bless my tongue and make me a poet._

“Andromache swims like a fish, and she likes to dance under the quarter moon. I have caught her swaying with the trees and humming in the moonlight more times than I can count. A thousand years and she’s never explained why - maybe because it was so long ago she doesn’t even remember - but I think it has to do with her first life, before her original death. Quỳnh, the other woman from our visions, is obsessed with turkeys. She spends -” 

“Turkeys? What is a turkeys?”

Nicky blinks. “A bird. I suppose they aren’t … they aren’t here yet, I am a few years early. They are on the other side of the world. But their feathers make the best fletching for arrows, and Quỳnh loses her mind with excitement when we find them. She can stalk and pluck a turkey faster than anyone I’ve ever known. Her arrows are works of art - masterpieces that fly straight and true. We have traveled the world, throughout many lifetimes, and I’ve never found their equal.”

“So what does that -”

“Then there’s Booker. He is an encyclopedia of drinking songs. He collects them and commits them to memory, in every language from every continent. When he’s in the right mood, within minutes of walking into any room he can have the whole crowd going, singing along.” He can barely resist the urge to hop to his feet and walk and gesture as he speaks. Instead, he slips his hands under his thighs, pinning them to the sand. “Nile is the youngest, but she’s so brave and clever. And she likes to sing, too - but different than Booker! She is a siren, her voice can charm a -”

“What does any of this matter?” Yusuf interrupts sharply, decisively. “I ask to know of the future, and you tell me about nonexistent birds and singing rivers?”

“It matters because we are a family.” Nicky’s chest is too small to contain his longing for everyone; the ache makes his ribs feel like porcelain, ready to crack the next time he inhales. “This thing that heals our wounds means that you will live for a very long time, Yusuf, and _this_ is the most important thing about the future: You do not live alone. There are many of us, and we love each other throughout the centuries.” 

He swallows a tight lump, knotted with thoughts about Booker and Quỳnh; it chafes going down. _Things will be different this time. I will make them different._

Yusuf’s eyes glitter obsidian in the moonlight, his face a brittle mask. Nicky knows how much effort it costs him, to school his expression to stillness like this; his eyebrows twitch like a release valve quivering under too much pressure. 

“We are a family, and we spend our lives helping people, doing what we think is right. We use our gift,” Nicky gestures between them, “to protect those who need protection. We save so many.”

“So you’re a noble warrior on a noble quest, that’s it? That’s the future you want to sell me on? Because I’ve already witnessed one of your noble quests, and it wasn’t very fucking inspiring.” He shakes his head and throws up both hands. “And what the hell is ‘beard burn’?” 

Nicky probably should have noticed that his hasty and time-crossed Arabic translation of that modern colloquialism was nonsense. He also should have known that Yusuf wouldn’t let it pass; that he’d fixate on this, instead of the bit about his immortal family and helping people. 

“The irritation of your skin,” he sighs, with the resigned inevitability of a snowball rolling downhill into an avalanche, “after kissing someone who has not shaved his beard.”

An eternity of silence follows. Then, finally, “No.”

This isn’t a broad rejection of the definition of the term; it is a rejection of Nicky, in particular. A chasm opens beneath his feet, a vision of the future in which he and Yusuf never piece themselves together, two parts into a whole. Instead of Quỳnh, Nicky is the one in an iron coffin, falling into Challenger Deep while Yusuf stares dispassionately from above the waves. 

“We have time,” Nicky murmurs, mostly to himself, refusing to acknowledge the panic scrabbling around his intestines. He’s going to starve that panic of air; he’s going to suffocate it until it crawls off somewhere to die and there is only his patient, eternal love left behind.

“At the inn, you said we are good friends _and more_.” He wrinkles his nose, hand flicking dismissively. “What more could there possibly be between us? I have made it clear that I do not like you.”

“You certainly have,” Nicky agrees. 

“Are you trying to convince me of something, here? Because you’re the worst salesman I’ve ever seen.” He huffs. “Just because we both cannot die, does not create some kind inevitability to - to anything!”

“You’re right. It doesn’t,” Nicky says. Over the course of his relationship with Joe, he has crafted a particular tone of voice to get under his skin during arguments - mild, agreeable, never straying in pitch. A voice full of gentle reassurance that _of course_ Joe is right and reasonable, _of course_ , darling, _of course_. A thousand years in the future, Joe would shove a finger in Nicky’s face and demand that he argue properly instead of using this maddening, shit-eating voice. 

Maybe it’s cheating to use this shit-eating voice on Yusuf, who does not yet know how to defend himself against it. _Or,_ he thinks, _maybe it’s a moral imperative._

“What has even given you the impression that I like men?” Yusuf snaps. “Before I left Mahdia, two different women were throwing themselves at my family, begging for a betrothal. I have just recently decided that I shall choose Meriem.” 

“Congratulations! May Allah bless you and send blessings upon you, and bring goodness between you.”

He sniffs, “Don’t flatter yourself by reading anything into the fact that I rescued you in al-Arish. I pitied you. That was all.”

“There is much to pity, it is true. Your actions in al-Arish speak of your generous nature.” 

“I’d rather live in a besieged al-Quds for a thousand years, than spend any more time with you than is necessary. I’d hack off my arms and feed them to lions before I’d touch you.” He stands up suddenly, feet shuffling in something dangerously close to a petulant stomp. “You are smug and unpleasant and … your face is unfortunate to look at. Truly unfortunate!” 

“It is the nose, isn’t it? Very big.” Nicky crosses his eyes in an exaggerated attempt to evaluate his own facial features. “Or the beard? Nothing like yours, so thick and impressive. Mine is mangy in comparison.”

“Stop agreeing with me!” Yusuf shouts. 

“But you are making good points.” 

“Fuck you! Fuck _everything!_ ” His hands tremble with rage as he gestures at the desert and the sky. Then, at Nicky. “I don’t want this!”

It hurts. God, _it hurts._ Not only the rejection, but seeing Yusuf in so much distress. The words _you don’t have to_ are on the tip of Nicky’s tongue, except that Yusuf _does._ Nicky could no more take away Yusuf’s immortality than he could give a few years of his own life to any of the thousands he has failed to save. And even if he could … God help him, but Nicky simply cannot bear the idea of an eternity spent without Yusuf al-Kaysani. He wrestles down the panic again. _Calm, patience_. 

“I know,” Nicky says quietly. 

“You think you can do this to me?” Yusuf curls his hands into fists. “You think you can just … follow me around, talking about strangers I have never met and suddenly we are joined at the hip for eternity? Well, here’s some news for you,” Yusuf says savagely. “I _have_ a family! My _real_ family! I have a mother and father and a sister and brothers, uncles and aunts and cousins who love me! And I’m just supposed to … what? Abandon them? For you?” 

“I would never ask you to -”

“Oh, you would never ask. You would _never ask_ , says the madman!” Yusuf paces in a tight circle in the gathering dark, kicking angrily at pebbles in his path. “You’ll just follow me around whispering in my ear about this fictional other life I’ve lived, telling me about the person I’m supposed to be and the people I’m supposed to love. Until …” The pacing stops, a look of dawning horror mixed with the anger on Yusuf’s face. “Until my family is all dead? Is that what you’re going to do? Wait until all of them have passed away, and then come get me?”

An image of Booker rises with sickening clarity to the front of Nicky’s mind - Booker, passed out by the wall of a graveyard stinking of liquor. _I guess you can take me now_ , he slurs. _It’s not like I’m going to do you any good_. 

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says, swallowing the pain. “Of the two of us, I am not the poet. I explained myself badly. Of course you should go back to your family if you wish.” 

Yusuf rounds on his heel. “And what am I supposed to tell them?” he snaps, apparently determined to be contrary. “How would I explain _you_ \- if I even agree to take you so far? I was never supposed to stay in al-Quds - how am I going to explain any of this to my father?” 

“I’m sure that you will come up with something much more clever than anything I could suggest.”

“You fucking -” 

The long string of curses that follows is so oddly familiar, Nicky smiles. This was how it had been, the first time they fled Jerusalem together. Yusuf had cursed his name to the heavens and back in languages Nicky hadn’t understood at the time, and Nicky had done the same. They had gone round and round, swiping warily at each other like a pair of angry cats, until the gradual rhythm of shared travel and strangeness had worn down their sharp edges. 

Was it their mutual terror at new immortality that had allowed Yusuf to truly see him, that first time? It has been so long since he and Joe needed to look back on their first years with anything but bemused fondness. Nicky sifts through centuries of conversations in his mind, sorting through poetic embellishments and romantic declarations to try and find the original seeds of their relationship. 

_How can I make you fall in love with me again?_

“... goddamn son of a jackass!” Yusuf fumbles back to his seat in their camp, now quite dark, and lets out a long frustrated sigh. “And to crown it all, you are as ignorant as you are useless because _you_ have no idea how to fix what is happening to us either!”

“I do not,” admits Nicky. “I just want to say that it need not be a curse, immortality. You are not alone. Everything happens for a reason.” 

“How original of you,” says Yusuf sourly. 

“As I said. Of the two of us, I am not the poet.” 

“Maybe it’s _you,_ ” Yusuf’s voice muses out of the dark, a hard edge to his words. “Maybe this is only happening to me because of _you_. Maybe, if I get far enough away from you, everything will go back to normal.” 

Nicky forces himself to take a few deep breaths. “I don’t think you truly believe that.”

“Oh you don’t, do you?”

“No.” The moon is rising, a pale sliver that sheds just enough light for Nicky to see the dim outline of Yusuf’s shape. “I think if you really thought that getting away from me would restore your mortality, you would have left me behind in al-Arish. Or in the hills of al-Quds. I think that you know in your heart what has been given to us is something far beyond our understanding. And that one way or another, God has put us here, at the same time, in the same place. Together.”

The silence that follows is heavy with tension. Nicky holds his breath. 

“Fucking bastard,” Yusuf bites out, and turns angrily away to curl up on his side. 

* * *

The nerve. The gall. The _sheer fucking arrogance_ of the man!

Yusuf grinds his teeth, seething in the dark as Nicky settles down to first watch on the other side of camp. He ought to stab him again. He _wants_ to. In fact, he is going to do it - the little dagger he took from al-Badawi is still on his belt. In a minute, Yusuf is going to sit up and go right over to that fucking Frank and stab him straight in his stupid, ugly face like he promised himself he would do in al-Arish. He can imagine the satisfaction of it now. He is absolutely going to do it. 

In one more minute. 

How _dare_ Nicky presume to know what he is thinking? How dare Nicky believe, even for a moment, that he is privy to any of the thoughts in Yusuf’s head? How dare Nicky waltz into his life for only a few short weeks and act like he has known Yusuf for years, like he can read every one of his emotions even though Yusuf has worked as hard as he can to hide them? 

How dare Nicky be _right_ about any of it?

Holding onto the anger feels better than admitting that Nicky, with his mousy hair and his bruise-dark eye sockets and his _infuriating_ voice, is actually right. Yusuf is terrified. He has buried the fear in the secret, most innermost parts of his heart, but it gibbers there nonetheless. The words _one thousand years_ loom over him with all the weight and horror of impending storm clouds - will he truly live so long? Will he live to bury not only his parents, but all of his brothers? His sister? The whitewashed wall with the door painted blue, the fig tree which cast shade over the baking tiles in the summer? Will he live, and everything he loves pass away? 

_No._ Yusuf digs his nails into his palms, feeling the skin break and heal over and over again. The Most Merciful would not be so cruel, to leave him alone for all eternity with only a mad enemy for company. He will go home. He will sail back to Mahdia, he will walk back through the bustling wharf and into the courtyard and straight into the arms of his family, and all will be well. He will sit on the roof with Adil and Ishaq, he will rest in the comforting wisdom of his father and mother. Everything will be alright, if only he can make it home again. 

_Meriem_. With a slight pang of guilt, Yusuf realizes that he hasn’t thought about Meriem in months. He wonders if she will have changed, when he returns. Yusuf himself feels so different that it might as well be a stranger, coming home. The idea of her feels odd in his mind - an image viewed from across a canyon, the long shadow of the siege of al-Quds and all that came after between them. 

And there is still the problem of what to do with Nicky.

Playing prisoner only ended in disaster - a hypothetical ransom is apparently enough for other men to want to take Yusuf’s strange shadow violently from him. But Yusuf isn’t sure if they are close enough to metropolitan Cairo for Nicky’s pale eyes and hair to pass unnoticed. News of the devastation of one of the most popular pilgrimage sites for miles could very easily have preceded them. Do they dare take the risk of simply riding in together, side by side? 

It would just be easiest to leave him behind. This has been the answer all along, of course - every step of the way through the Sinai, in al-Arish, and now here along the edge of Egypt. He could just get up and ride away while Nicky sleeps. But no matter how burdensome he finds this Frank and his claims on Yusuf’s future, the idea of coping with immortality alone is still heavier. Leaving Nicky behind would be the simplest option and simultaneously the hardest thing in the world, because he’s right: The fact that they are here, together, means something. 

Then how are Yusuf’s choices really choices, at all?

As if still somehow reading his thoughts, Nicky clears his throat. “Yusuf, you are a good man, and … and you are right to be angry.” His words are unsmoothed by artifice, rough with emotion. “I am sorry for Jerusalem. I have worked many lifetimes to put more good into the world than the bad I have done. Except all of those acts of atonement have vanished, and no one remembers them except me.” He pauses, inhaling shakily. “Perhaps that means they never existed at all, and counted for nothing. But I will spend another ten thousand years doing the work over again, if that is how long God ordains me to walk this path.”

His voice shifts, as if he has turned to look away. “I pray God’s path for you is illuminated, as well, and that it leads to happiness, whatever direction that may be.”

Yusuf doesn’t move, and he certainly doesn’t reply. He isn’t exactly pretending to be asleep, but what is he supposed to do? Sit up? Talk? Throw himself into Nicky’s arms? He doesn’t want any of those things right now. Instead, with his back to the other man, he stays on his side and stares straight ahead at the horses’ legs in the nearby moonlight. They shift uncomfortably, hungry and thirsty as they are. Yusuf sympathizes with them. 

The heat of the day is beginning to fade, and he wishes someone would club him over the head and knock him unconscious so he will stop thinking. He’s certain that Nicky wouldn’t oblige, if he asked. _Selfish asshole._

A while later, a soothing sound drifts from where the other man stands watch. He’s singing to himself in a language that Yusuf doesn’t recognize, but it reminds him of the Christian hymns he heard when he was much younger, and his father took him to Ṭulayṭulah - although it is called Toledo now, and he hasn’t been back in years. 

The words are low, almost a hum. Nicky’s unexpectedly beautiful voice vibrates through Yusuf’s spine and catches his breath in his throat, because he’s afraid to interrupt with even the slightest noise. For a fleeting moment he wonders what the words mean - but then again, perhaps it’s better if he can’t understand. 

Lulled by gentle singing, blanketed in an unexpected sense of safety, Yusuf falls asleep.


	20. 1099

Nicky wakes Yusuf in the small hours of the night to trade watch, a warm hand on his shoulder. He lurches to his feet as the other man settles down, shuffling close enough in the transition to feel Nicky’s body heat like a crackling fire in the crisp night air. Groggy, thoughts half-formed, he instinctively turns toward the sensation of warmth and only just restrains himself from following Nicky back to the ground and to sleep again. 

Instead, he staggers away as Nicky curls into a shivering ball, with his crossbow nearby and clutching his sword. He burrows into his thin, half-sleeved tunic - the tunic Yusuf gave him - and tries to rest. Yusuf’s breath billows steam in front of his face as he stares into the desert. His body trembles in sync with Nicky’s, his linen shirt even thinner and riddled with holes. 

As poorly outfitted as they are, they’ve been lucky in the days since al-Arish, blessed with cool nights but nothing like this - a true cold snap. Yusuf’s finger-joints ache, and no matter how fast he paces or rubs his arms, his blood flows like mud. He checks on the two horses huddled nearby, flanks pressed together against the cold. He rests his hands against his mare’s side, hot like a bellows, and leans his cheek against her withers. The horse shifts, agitated by the unexpected contact and picking up on Yusuf’s mood. 

He’s already anxious again, verging on angry, his mind whirling just like before Nicky accidentally sang him to sleep. As he walks another circuit around the camp, he breathes a few notes of Nicky’s hymn in the back of his throat, and he decides he cannot be a coward anymore. It’s time to do the one simple thing he knows might set him right - the one simple thing he’s been avoiding since al-Quds. 

Stomach churning with nerves, he finds a stretch of relatively clean earth, tossing aside a few pebbles to clear it completely before he goes to his knees. He takes his time, rubbing sand between his fingers and brushing it over his forehead and cheeks - not necessarily for the sake of a thorough _tayammum_ , but because he is procrastinating even now, giving Allah abundant time to strike him truly dead for daring to offer _salat_ in such an unholy state. Because what is he, if not an abomination? 

Yusuf eventually gathers his full courage and rises to his feet, squinting at the stars and orienting himself toward Mecca. He decides it’s probably closer to time for _al-isha_ than _al-fajr,_ and begins slowly. His body and voice tremble at first with nerves and cold but grow steadier as he bows, kneels, rises, and bows again. His words are soft, kept quiet so as not to disturb Nicky. By the time he finishes, on his knees, Allah has not struck him dead. In fact, the rhythm of his prayers and the soft settling into a ritual that has been part of his days since he was a child has made him feel more like himself than he has in weeks. 

His spirit is lighter, as if larger and surer hands than his own have wrung out his fear and rage. He isn’t ready to _accept_ the idea of this fate, by any means, but Yusuf at least is willing to sit with it for a while before he shouts again. 

It’s still _really_ fucking cold, though. The air shudders in his lungs, his chest contracting in protest as he tries to breathe normally. Nicky is shaking on the ground at an identical frequency, clearly not sleeping but with his back to Yusuf, as if giving him privacy. 

_Can we die of exposure? What happens if I revive, still stranded in the cold? Or will this unwanted gift keep me alive and half-frozen, miserable and fully aware of it, until the sun rises?_

The night is quiet and empty, danger unlikely. It would be practical to share a bedroll for warmth. It is a matter of efficiency, nothing more. Yusuf has done it many times in his life, with many different men - his brothers, friends, and business partners. Even with strangers, when rooms were scarce at various inns during his many travels. 

They both have their boots on, anyway, and it isn’t as if he’s going to have to deal with the Frank’s icy toes touching his calves. 

Before he can talk himself out of it, he clambers down to settle against Nicky’s back. “Quit shivering. You’re being dramatic,” he says, shivering violently alongside him. So his gesture cannot be mistaken for an embrace, he folds one arm beneath his own head for a pillow and carefully keeps his top arm plastered against his own side. He curls his body into the other man, chest to back and thighs to hamstrings. 

Nicky instantly tenses, his breathing stoppered in his chest. He smells of sweat and the sea, only marginally better than the horses. His short hair is spiky at the nape of his pale neck, inches from Yusuf’s chin. Yusuf tips his head back, so his beard doesn’t tickle. It isn’t as if he _wants_ a snuggle, anyway.

“Relax. This is only because I’m not interested in finding out what it’s like to die of exposure,” he mutters. “I’ll still keep watch. Just go to sleep.”

“Okay.” Nicky’s torso shudders around the nonsense word, probably from the cold. He tentatively uncurls from his tight fetal position and presses himself more thoroughly into Yusuf’s body. The two of them shift against each other a few times, silently negotiating angles. It’s like lying with a particularly large piece of driftwood, Nicky’s body stiff and his arms still clenched around his sword.

The layers of linen between them are thin, so their collective body heat builds quickly. To Yusuf’s surprise, Nicky is asleep within moments. He feels the other man slip into unconsciousness, his posture softening as he slumps completely into Yusuf. The motion is so natural, it’s as if he has been poised and waiting this entire time to turn supple, to mold his body into this exact spot. 

Lying with him is … surprisingly comfortable, now that his brain has switched off. One of his legs shifts back automatically, hooking Yusuf’s calf like an anchor. Yusuf stares at the back of his head, at his own steamy breath fading into chestnut-colored hair. _That was … easy_.

He doesn’t know what he expected. Something more dramatic than this, certainly. Nicky radiates comfortable warmth; a broad-shouldered pan of coals with surprisingly soft hair and skin. If Yusuf were to throw an arm over him, right where Nicky’s waist tapers to a convenient width, they could be even warmer. Yusuf could tuck his face into the crook of Nicky’s shoulder so the tip of his nose doesn’t get so cold. 

_Go on_ , urges a voice in his head. _What harm can a few more inches do?_

 _Give him an inch, he will take your arm,_ grumbles another voice that sounds suspiciously like his grandfather. _Sleeping with wolves will get you bitten._

Yusuf tucks his hand even more firmly into his side. He is on watch. Sharing warmth is practical. 

That’s all.

* * *

_Good morning, my love_. 

“Morning _,_ ” mumbles Nicky, eyes still closed. The covers must have come off in the night - their bedroom is uncomfortably cold.

_You need to get up. We have to go soon._

“No, don’t go.” He can’t find Joe’s hand - he wants to hold it. “I miss you.” 

_Why would you miss me, hayati? I’m right here._

“Don’t go.” The warmth is fading. Nicky shifts restless, trying to turn around into the familiar embrace. He needs to see Joe _right now,_ but he can’t open his eyes. “Because … because …”

“Ow - _fuck!”_

Nicky’s eyes fly open. 

The sun is already risen, shining the cheerful bright rays of early morning over their campsite. In the distance, the familiar blue Mediterranean twinkles at him. He is back in 1099, on some uncomfortably hard ground. His bed, his breakfast, and his beloved of nine hundred years in the future are very, very far away. 

The _fuck_ had come from Yusuf, who is sitting groggily up next to him. Yusuf rubs at his eyes, feeling around behind his back until he finds the offending rock. “Shit.” 

“It’s morning,” Nicky says numbly.

“I can see that,” Yusuf replies in an acid tone, turning over and rising slowly to his feet. “ _Fuck_. I must have drifted off. Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?” 

“Me?” Nicky blinks, head still fuzzy. He does usually wake up first - Joe is not by any stretch of the word a _morning person_. “I ... don’t know. I must have slept deeper than usual.”

Yusuf glares at him blearily. “I’m taking first watch tonight. This was stupid and foolish.” 

“Fine.” Nicky takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. The warmth of the dream is already fading, the well-remembered affection and closeness like gossamer blown away in the breeze. He grasps at the fleeting feeling. _My sun, my stars, my guiding light. Holy Mary, Mother of our Lord, bring us back to each other. Give me patience, give me strength. Give me hope._ “I think we both have been sleeping badly since we began. Maybe we should rest more during the day?”

“ _I_ am sleeping just fine.” Yusuf’s early morning peevishness seems to be worse on this particular day. Probably an aftereffect of the first night they spent properly sleeping together. In the most innocent sense of the word. 

Even though Nicky knows he has an unfair advantage, he can’t help but tease Yusuf a little bit. “Truly, I can tell from the radiance of your demeanor this morning.”

“Shut up.”

“Any man should be so lucky, to wake up to such a beautiful sight.”

“Did I not _just_ tell you to shut up?” Yusuf brushes irritably at his clothes. “If you’re trying to be smug about the night’s watch, you have a good long ways to go before you’re the one with the moral high ground here.” 

Nicky holds up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Yusuf mutters before turning away and stretching his arms up to the sky. Nicky’s eyes trail down the long, perfect curve of his back before he forces himself to look away. He doesn’t have the right to get caught ogling, yet. 

Both of them busy themselves with their own morning stretches, working out the kinks of a short night sleeping rough. Nile, to her and Nicky’s shared satisfaction, had also been a morning person. Although he doesn’t always join her on her morning runs, she has been intrigued by some of the warm-up routines that Nicky has learned under different names over the years. She had asked him jokingly in the middle of a particularly difficult stretch if it were any easier to get more flexible once you were immortal. He had replied that most things came with enough practice. 

“Hey.”

Maybe that is the answer: practice. Yusuf seemed to sleep better last night, when they lay close together. It is an encouraging sign.

“Hey!”

Maybe all Nicky needs to do is wait on the right time. Maybe all he needs to do is be there by Yusuf’s side, and destiny will take its own course. 

“ _Nicky!”_

Nicky startles, whipping his head up. Yusuf is staring around at the empty hills. 

“You’ve never called me by my name before,” says Nicky stupidly, his heart giving a hopeful thump.

“Never mind that,” Yusuf says in a strangled voice. “Where are the fucking _horses?”_


	21. 2021

Nicolò spots his discarded clothes as soon as he pokes his head out of the back door. He sighs in relief, stooping to gather up the gambeson and the leggings from the ground. They hadn’t been in the white closet, or in the bedroom. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of the thin, soft underthings that everyone seems to wear in 2021, but Nicolò would just as soon not throw good cloth away.

He feels ... _restless_. The peace that Joe has apparently found since Jerusalem has eluded him. Nicolò is surrounded by incomprehensible words, bewildering magic, strangers who, although kind, seem very busy figuring out what to do _about_ him without actually doing anything _with_ him. He has been assigned a place and a penance, but has not the slightest idea of how to begin atoning. 

He might as well start by taking care of his own clothes. 

“Excuse me,” he says, walking back into the kitchen. “Is there a place I can wash these?”

The wolf-woman - _Andy_ \- and Nile start up in simultaneous indignant protest. Andy wrinkles her nose in a distinct expression of disgust. Nile holds up a hand. Nicolò doesn’t need Joe’s wince to know what their words mean. 

His face heats up. Surely he hadn’t smelled _that_ bad.

“We threw those out, Nico,” Joe says awkwardly. “You don’t have to wear them anymore.” 

“Do you _know_ how much these _cost_?” says Nicolò, horrified. He clutches the bundle a little tighter.

“Too little for keep,” says Andy, nose still wrinkled. Nile is politely trying not to make faces, but she still clearly agrees. 

“Alright, fine.” Joe puts up his hands in a peacemaking gesture. “Washing it is.”

* * *

The washing and drying machines in the San Francisco safehouse are a relatively recent addition. Nicky and Booker wrestled them into place some forgotten number of years ago - a purchase for one of their truly bizarre jobs that had involved (if Joe remembers correctly) a rappel harness, a box of candy, and an unholy amount of vegetable oil. 

“Okay.” Joe sorts through the various dusty bottles sitting around. “You’ve forgotten this, but for some reason you actually like these machines. Maybe this will bring something back.”

“What are they?” Nicolò, still clutching his foul-smelling bundle, is peering through the clear plastic front of the washing machine. 

“Machines for washing clothes. You put liquid soap in this little compartment here” - Joe pulls out the drawer - “and the machine turns the drum.” 

The weary look Nicolò gives him tells Joe that _witchcraft_ discussions are right around the corner. “Why can’t I just rinse them off in the basin?”

“This will get rid of the smell faster.” Joe opens a bottle of detergent at random, sniffing cautiously. It looked like it was from this century - did this brand expire? “You like being able to throw everything in at once and come back to clean clothes. Which is _faster_ , yes, but it’s very important to learn that you can’t just do that for everything.”

“I don’t need to do it for _anything_.”

“For some clothes, it’s handy.” Joe pours a cautious capful of the detergent and holds it out to Nicolò, nodding to the drawer. “For others, not so much. A nice jacket I bought you, for example.” 

Nicolò frowns at the cap in his hand, ignoring the memory bait. It had been a nice jacket, Joe remembers fondly. Pity that Nicky had never gotten into the habit of reading tags. 

“Hold up!” Nile skids around the corner, pulling up short at the smell. “Don’t start the cycle yet!”

“What happened?”

Nile points at the dirty bundle in Nicolò’s arms. “You said yesterday, ‘this safehouse isn’t that old.’ Where did he get those?” 

Joe follows her gaze. “There’s random shit in all our houses, I thought maybe Nicolò … that he …” What _did_ Joe think? Not much, truthfully. He’s been so wrapped up fretting about Nicky’s missing memories and emotional state, he hasn’t put much mental energy into anything peripheral. This anachronistic outfit seemed very, very peripheral. Sometimes it feels like they were wearing bell bottoms last week, and doublets last month, and chainmail last year. The cyclical nature of fashion - practical or otherwise - can be an enjoyable hobby, but occasionally it blurs together, especially when Joe has more important things to focus on. He finishes weakly, “I thought maybe he found them in the house somewhere.”

“I get it,” Nile says. “I found a Victorian nightgown in the closet in my bedroom last night. We ought to have one hell of a rummage sale for charity sometime. But I don’t think that medieval armor was tucked in a dresser drawer.”

Andy strolls around the corner behind Nile, phone in hand and mouth quirked in amusement. “Nile, you sent me a text from inside the same building? I was only upstairs, you could’ve come -”

“It was just faster,” Nile says, angling herself to face all three of them and lifting both hands to gather their attention, like a conductor about to direct an orchestra.

“So why am I here?” Andy asks. “ _Laundry room. Emergency_ , the text said. I figured Nicolò had gone out the window again.” 

Nicolò lifts an eyebrow at the sound of his name, and she grins. At the sight of her teeth, his shoulders hunch a fraction, but he juts out his chin in a gesture that looks suspiciously like a challenge.

“Listen. The Encino police department finally called me back. That was a dead end because Sara Williamson lived a relatively uneventful, if slightly unfortunate, life,” Nile says, her gaze repeatedly flicking over to Nicolò and the bundle of clothes in his arms. “I confirmed that she was originally born in 1968, but that call made me go back to Copley’s file about young Sara, including the pictures of her from a few days ago, when you rescued her from the lab.” 

Nicolò cocks his head at Nile, as if he might understand her if he just concentrates hard enough. He’s absently thumbing a patch on his gambeson that Joe hasn’t paid attention to before. It isn’t a simple knot of thread; it’s a hand-embroidered crest, pale blue criss-crossed with white bands. The design is vaguely familiar, but Joe is too distracted to place it just now. 

Nicolò asks, “What is she excited about?”

“Just a minute,” he replies in Ligurian, instinctively slipping a reassuring hand in the small of Nicolò’s back. The other man edges sideways, out of reach. Joe’s hand falls back to his own hip. 

Nile continues, “Sara Williamson’s outfit in those lab pictures is flawless vintage: Jordache jeans and a Member’s Only jacket that she probably took when her dad wasn’t looking. But when I say flawless, I mean _flawless_ , as if they came off the store rack yesterday. These clothes weren’t thirty years old. Where did she get them? From Reeve? Where would _he_ have gotten them, and why bother dressing Sara up in 1980s fashion if the point of his experiments was de-aging people?” 

Her words tumble out faster as she grows visibly more nervous. Nervous about sharing her theory, in case they don’t believe her? Nervous about the conclusion she’s working toward? Either way, her agitation is contagious; Andy shifts restlessly, left shoulder dropping a little, which looks like impatience. Joe has known her long enough to recognize it as a sign of battle-readiness.

His brain is scrabbling at the edges of Nile’s revelation, probing for logical finger holds, when Andy blurts out, “So what?”

“So, look at Nicolò’s clothes! They might be filthy, but that cotton isn’t a thousand years old. It isn’t even twenty years old. It’s much newer than that.” Nile rocks back on her heels a little. “I’m saying what if Sara and Nicky weren’t de-aged? What if they just … hopped forward a few years, and brought their clothes along for the ride?”

“Hopped forward?” Joe says, blindly reaching for Nicolò’s hand; he grasps only air. His stomach jolts, as if he’s taken a step and expected to hit solid ground, but has fallen off a cliff instead. Nicolò has moved further out of reach, edging toward Nile. “What does that mean, _hopped forward?”_

“I don’t know, man. I think it’s - I mean, what if it’s fucking time travel?” The words are frayed around the edges, as if she’s worried she has sawed herself away from rational thought, from reality itself.

“Time travel?” Andy bites out, her eyes suddenly riveting to Nicolò. 

“Shit, is there an echo in here?” Nile retorts. “Copley was right when he said that the existence of immortal people was a big fucking pill to swallow in the first place. Why not time travel, too? Andy, you’re the one who told me that since I believed in God, I might as well keep believing in the supernatural stuff. My life has been so goddamn weird this year. I haven’t had a real conversation with a normal person in months!” Her breathing accelerates, and she’s bouncing a little on her toes. “You know what else I found in that closet in my room this morning? A couple of antique wooden dildos from 1890 or whatever, and I was just like, of course. _Of course!_ Existentially speaking, that’s where I’m at! So yeah, I said time-fucking-travel!”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay, kid,” Andy says, reaching toward the other woman. Nile’s eyes widen and her nose flares at the word _kid_. For a wild second, Joe thinks that Nile might punch Andy - he doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this right now, he is going to disintegrate - but Nicolò steps in between them. 

Still clutching his filthy, reeking medieval clothes in one arm, he reaches out his other hand to Nile and wiggles his fingers, an invitation. In Ligurian: “Joe, what are you saying? Why are you upsetting her?” Nile takes his hand and squeezes, just like yesterday morning at the kitchen table, except this time Nicolò is the one providing comfort. Their gazes lock; she takes a deep breath and steps next to him. _They both look so young,_ Joe thinks. _He looks so young._ It isn’t his unwrinkled face or the lack of grey in his hair; it’s the way he holds himself, the set of his shoulders and the lift of his head. Nicky has always carried his centuries well, but the man gripping Nile’s hand stands like someone who is still trying to figure out how to be comfortable in his own skin. 

“The blue symbol on your gambeson,” Joe says in Ligurian, his stomach tumbling like it has been thrown into the washing machine beside them. “That’s your family’s coat of arms, isn’t it, Nicolò?” 

He tears his gaze from Nile’s, glancing at Joe. “Yes. My mother embroidered it before I left home. Now what did you say to upset Nile?”

The gambeson is dirty, stained with blood and sweat, but it certainly isn’t Joe’s age. If it was, it would be frail as a spiderweb. Through numb lips, Joe mumbles, “She thinks you’ve traveled here from a thousand years ago.” 

“I _told_ you that is what happened,” Nicolò replies, exasperated. “I fell asleep in Jerusalem two days ago, during the siege, and I woke up in this house full of strangers!”

The fact that Nicky has been telling Joe the truth these last few days and Joe simply dismissed his claim out of hand - undermining the most fundamental, most basic tenet of their relationship, a foundation established during the first of their nine-hundred twenty-two years together - sends bile churning up Joe’s throat. The love of his life, his very _very_ long life, and he failed in this most elementary thing. Of course Joe should believe Nicky’s word even over his own physical senses, his own concept of reality. _How could I do that to him?_

“Nile has a point, boss,” he says to Andy in English, closer to a wheeze than words. 

Nicolò’s grip on Nile tightens, and Joe feels lightheaded. In terms of practical ramifications, this isn’t so different from the idea of Nicky de-aging. But for some reason the idea that this man in front of him _really is_ the one he murdered so many years ago in a barn in al-Quds, is a splash of cold water across his soul. Except from Nicolò’s perspective, Joe killed him one day and then tried to kiss him the next. No wonder he’s been climbing out of windows at every opportunity, trying to escape.

“Nile, what happened to the fifty-year-old Sara Williamson?” Joe asks. _What happened to nine-hundred-year-old Nicky?_ he can’t bring himself to say aloud. “If this is time travel, then when the younger Sara came to 2021, where did older Sara go? Why is she missing?”

“Why is no one speaking to me?” Nicolò snaps, flinging his laundry to the ground in frustration.

“Later, Nicolò,” says Andy in Ligurian. “Nile, are you sure?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to take orders from _you,”_ Nicolò snaps again. 

Andy’s eyes flash. “You remember _nothing!”_

If Nicolò were a cat he would be arching and spitting. Joe angles himself between them, holding up a hand. “Nile. You were talking about Sara Williamson.”

“I don’t _know,_ man!” Nile drops Nicolò’s hand and clasps her hands behind her head, rocking back on her heels. “I’m just saying, there’s some really weird shit here that isn’t adding up, and time travel kind of fits the pieces together! Maybe I’m talking out of my ass. Maybe their fashion sense is just de-aging, too. Maybe Nicky and fifty-year-old Sara are chilling together somewhere in some alternate dimension drinking margaritas, I don’t know! Apparently I’ve been watching the wrong goddamn TV shows all my life!” 

“You should both leave her alone.” Nicolò is glaring. “Just because you two don’t listen doesn’t mean you need to yell at Nile.” 

The sick surge of guilt and hurt must actually be visible on his face, because Nile gives a brief reassuring smile. “We’re good, okay Nicolò? You don’t need to get mad at Joe.” 

“Fuck.” Andy rubs at her face wearily. “I thought we were done with this shit about a thousand years ago. No wonder he stinks.” 

“We’re not done here.” Joe feels strangely lightheaded. His body is awash in a fuzz of static. “We’re _not done_. If the younger Sara Williamson is here, _what happened to the older one?”_

The four of them stare at each other in blank confusion. The silence stretches and stretches until a blare of loud music makes them all jump.

 _Music knows it is and always will_ _  
_ _Be one of the things that life just won't quit!_

“Shit.” Nile fumbles her phone out of her pocket. “All y’all be quiet for a minute. Hello?” 

Nicolò picks up his bundle of laundry from the ground, frowning at the faint voice coming out of the speaker. Behind his back, Andy meets Joe’s eyes with an eloquent look. 

“Hey, Copley,” says Nile, with some relief. “Yeah, I looked over the reports. We’ve got some theories from our end and maybe some clues, but nothing foolproof yet.” 

“What is going on?” hisses Nicolò. Nile makes a furious gesture for silence. Joe tries to smile, but he can’t stop looking at the little patch of blue thread on Nicolò’s gambeson. Nicolò di Genova, third son of his house, born in the Gregorian year 1069 ...

“Good to know. Hey, if you can make it happen, one of us should be in the room. Can you swing that? Alright, thanks. Keep me posted.” Nile ends the call.

“What was that?” Joe and Andy say simultaneously. 

“That,” says Nile with a deep sigh, “was Copley. He’s heading to his meeting with Agent Burman from the CIA. He was all polite and British about saying it, but this is basically turning into a jurisdictional clusterfuck. About a million different agencies want to talk to those poor kids.” 

“So?” Andy pushes her hair back impatiently. “This is what we have Copley for. To be our man on the inside.”

“Yeah.” Nile tucks her phone back into her pocket. “Copley thinks he’s got a shot at getting an interview with the kids, and he can find a way to bring at least one of us with him. Joe is the only one who was actually there, so maybe they’ll open up more to him.”

Andy shakes her head. “Too risky. One of them will remember his face.”

“He did save them from a mad science lab.” 

“You trust a toddler to keep a secret?”

“Fair point,” acknowledges Nile. “But here’s the thing. Say we meet little Sara Williamson in her adorable ‘80s outfit. What do we actually … do?” 

“We ask her if she remembers anything.” Joe takes a deep breath. He misses Nicky - _his_ Nicky - with a sudden, sharp fierceness.

“Yeah, because that worked so well with Encino Man over here. I mean, I still want to talk to her but what are we supposed to ask? ‘Hey kid, where’s your fifty-year-old self?’” 

“I’m clearly not needed here.” Nicolò says irritably. “When you’re all done arguing, I am going to be in the other room washing my clothes. Like a normal, God-fearing person.” 

“He is _not_ washing out his thousand-year-old sweaty underwear in the kitchen sink.” Andy says firmly. 

“If the wolf-woman has a problem with what I’m doing, she can say it in words I can understand!” Nicolò growls.

“He can’t wash those now!” Nile’s voice is scaling up to a strained high pitch. “Those are … those are evidence!” 

“Has everyone just forgotten I still have ears?!” 

The room dissolves into argument, words bouncing back and forth across the language barrier like a badly tuned radio dial. Some years before Booker, Joe remembers getting stranded during a blizzard in Tikirarjuaq. Stinging snow and ice had whipped sideways through the air, blinding him to anything more than a few inches in front of his nose. He had left the makeshift shelter for only a few moments, but Joe vividly remembers the moment when he turned back to where he _thought_ the entrance was to find only ice. 

Stumbling blindly around in the howling white wilderness had felt a little like this.

There is no question of _what to do_. Clinging to Nicky when his whole world is falling apart has been Joe’s solution of choice for the last nine hundred years, even when they were enemies. What is really behind his horrible sinking dread is the thought that this might be permanent. That this isn’t a question of simply waiting for memories to return. The trust between them has apparently gone, slipped away while Joe wasn’t looking. The love of his life has been taken, _stolen,_ replaced by a man that Nicky hasn’t been for nine hundred years. A man who will look at Joe with fear and hatred, resisting and fighting and pulling away until … until ...  
  
_Stop, oh my friends, let us pause to weep_  
_Over the remembrance of my beloved ..._

The dryer lid makes a loud _clang_ as Joe brings his hand down hard. “ _Everyone shut up!”_

Silence falls. Three sets of eyes goggle at him.

“I’m …” He swallows, clenching his fists. “I’m going out. To get some air.” 

Without waiting for a reply, Joe turns and walks straight out of the room.


	22. 2021

The slam of the back door makes them all flinch. 

Nicolò bunches his hands guiltily in his stained gambeson. Nile is staring worriedly down the hallway after Joe. Andy is frowning at Nicolò.

Nicolò scowls right back. It wasn’t him that refused to see the obvious. It wasn’t him that upset Nile. And who is Andy to frown at him, anyway? Nile is clearly Joe’s friend - kind, clever, willing to call Nicolò on his bullshit if she has to. But Andy has yet to do anything besides take up Joe’s time and punch Nicolò in the face for absolutely no reason. Who is she? A sister? A commander? Some kind of rival, jealous of Joe’s affection? 

Nicolò’s mind twists darkly around the sudden thought. _Rivalry._ He isn’t the man who smiled so easily from the pages of Joe’s little book of drawings, but the thought that someone _else_ might be trying to find a place there is … is ...

_No. Think about something else._

“Sorry, Nicolò.” Andy’s Ligurian is still bad, but her pronunciation is improving. “Not your fault.” 

Nicolò gives her a cold look. “I still have to wash my clothes.” 

Nile, catching his drift, holds up her hands in the universal _wait a minute_ gesture. She walks quickly out of the room, returning with a white bag made of some kind of glossy, rustling material. She holds it open in front of him, speaking quickly to Andy.

“Wash later,” Andy translates. “Keep safe, for now.” 

The rustling bag does not look sturdy enough to keep anything safe, but after a second look at Nile’s face he grudgingly drops his bundle in. Nile draws the flimsy drawstrings tight, leaving it on the top of the white boxes Joe was showing him earlier. She says something to Andy again.

“What do you remember?” 

“I told Joe.” Without the - admittedly very dirty - weight of his clothes, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “I went to sleep in a stable in Jerusalem, and then I woke up in the room upstairs.” 

Nile steps forward, clearly pressing for more. Andy translates: “Did you see anything strange?”

“ _Everything_ is strange here. Have you seen the chamber pots in this place?”

“Not that.” Andy cuts a hand through the air impatiently. “Anything between?”

“No.” Nicolò racks his brains, trying to remember how he fell asleep. Sunday morning seems like years ago. “I fell asleep, I woke up. I thought I was in hell.” The others keep staring at him expectantly, like he’s a trained dog not performing its trick. “Unless you want to know about my dreams?”

“What dreams?” Andy asks.

“Dreams of Joe.” During the siege, the manifestation of Nicolò’s portentous visions of a strange man into flesh-and-blood form seemed like a confirmation of his calling to reclaim the Holy Land for Christ. The sight of not just _any_ infidel atop the walls of Jerusalem, but Nicolò’s _bespoke_ infidel, fueled him through his fear and exhaustion and into the city. He’d cut Joe’s throat beside the Tower of David; of course, Joe sliced Nicolò’s gut open at the exact same time, and Nicolò experienced his first death a few dozen steps away, in the street, holding his entrails in his hands. 

Trying to force away the memories of that terrible day, he scratches the back of his neck, but his fingers snag in the braids Joe gave him only a few hours ago. This somehow makes his thoughts worse. His cheeks sting as he continues, “There were also other dreams sometimes, of you and different woman. Not Nile, but a pale woman with straight dark hair.”

Andy’s eyes cut to the ground. 

“Dreams were not what you meant, when you asked about something between sleep and waking?” Nicolò says. 

“No.”

Nile says something to Andy, and Andy replies brusquely. The sentence ends with the word _Quỳnh_ , which leaves both women quiet for a long moment. Nile shoots him a sympathetic glance, and then exchanges an even longer significant look with Andy that means nothing to Nicolò, because _still_ no one has answered his very reasonable goddamn question about what’s going on. 

“I believe it is the hour for _nones_ ,” Nicolò says. Maybe he shouldn’t be petty, but since he’s about to go kneel and repent anyway, what’s one more little thing to add to the list of transgressions? “I will leave you to finish this discussion, whatever the hell it is about. I obviously am not needed here.”

He strides out of the room, ignoring the conversation that kicks up behind him. He’s halfway to the third floor when Andy catches up. Behind her, Nile hustles out the front of the house, the door slamming behind her. 

Andy pretends not to notice Nile’s exit. “Nicolò, where you going?”

“I am going to pray,” he sighs tiredly. Is this supposed to be his life now, justifying himself nonstop to these three people? Accounting for his every thought and action? He’s practically a prisoner. This is worse than living at the abbey, under Abbot Cassano’s thumb. At least there he had privacy in his cell, and he could take walks often, and he was getting laid on occasion. Here, every time he tries to step out of the room - much less out of the house - he’s run down like a lost sheep and hauled back to the pen. 

It’s infuriating. It’s infantilizing. It isn’t as if he’s doing any _harm_. 

Andy’s jaw tightens and she stares at him, eyes sharper than an eagle’s. Even standing below him on the stairs, she somehow manages to loom taller. 

“No leaving house,” she says firmly.

“I am _go_ -ing to pr- _ay_ ,” he repeats, aggressively enunciating the syllables as if speaking to a child. It’s angry and condescending because … well, because that’s exactly how he feels.

Like so very many choices he has made in his life, this is a mistake - one that he realizes instantly. He’s well aware of his own self-destructive streak when it comes to authority figures. His inability to stay away from other men, for instance, no matter how much penance Abbott Cassano gave him, fasting on bread and fish for nearly a year. Or his constant antagonism of his brother Luciano, which led to him losing all access to his family’s already derelict financial resources, before Agnesia and Vincenti took pity on him. 

There’s always a little voice tickling in the back of his head in these emotionally driven, impulsive moments, _No, Nicolò. Don’t be a shithead, Nicolò._ He’s spent his whole life studiously ignoring that voice. In this moment, his heart rabbiting in his chest, he wishes he could go back and re-do every one of those thirty years, just to escape the murderous weight of Andy’s flinty gaze. 

It dawns on him that she must be vastly, _vastly_ more ancient than nine-hundred-year-old Joe. For a split-second, trembling and breathless under the weight of her scrutiny, he can imagine what it must be like to stand in front of God Almighty’s throne and have his soul judged.

“You. Stay. In. House,” she repeats, crossing her arms, her words sharp as knives. Nicolò swallows, teeth grinding as he wills himself to meet her stare. It takes every last scrap of his nerve. “If you hurt Joe, I kill you with my own two hands. Be gentle for him, he a good man. Understand?”

“I understand.” The words are tight in his throat. The last time he climbed out a window and ended up in a fountain, he was lucky that Joe found him. Nicolò doesn’t want to know what will happen if he does the same again, and Andy is the one who tracks him down.

“Good.” She dismisses him with a wave. “Go pray, then.”

It takes all his self control not to scamper up the stairs.

* * *

“Thanks for stopping,” Nile says, around a mouth full of french fries. “God, I missed burgers. I mean, I’ve had a few the last couple of months, but not _good_ burgers.”

Copley glances sideways from the driver’s seat, watching her take a long swig of soda, before he merges into traffic from the In-N-Out parking lot. “Are they not feeding you properly, Ms. Freeman?”

She snorts. “There is _so_ much food, Mr. Copley. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Thousands of years’ worth of cuisine, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The _cookbooks_ these people could write, they’d probably make historians’ brains explode. But sometimes a girl just wants a coke and fries, you know?” 

Since the first weekend the group spent at Copley’s house outside of London, sorting out culpability and punishment, he has maintained a scrupulous level of formality with all of them. Nile likes tossing it back to him. It would be weird calling him James, anyway. The only person he calls by first name is Andy, although it’s always _Andromache,_ and it’s because even if she could remember having a last name, she probably wouldn’t share it. Nile keeps waiting for him to slip up and accidentally call her “Ms. Scythian,” mostly because she wants to see how Andy reacts. 

“We still have to do something about your clothes,” he says. “You can’t show up to interview this Sara Williamson girl in jeans in a t-shirt, not if you’re supposed to be professional.”

“It’ll be fine,” she says, wiggling a fry in his direction. “I promise, I can swing it. You’ll be the bad cop in a button-down, I’ll be the good-cop cool caseworker.” Sure, sometimes Andy, Joe, and Nicky go to the trouble of dressing the part when undercover. But half the time, they simply strut in the door with the default attitude of thousand-plus-year-old humans: absolute confidence that they belong anywhere, at any time, for any reason. A couple of months ago, Nile witnessed Andy commandeer a van from a group of Russian soldiers by convincing them that she was an FSB boss, wearing cutoffs and a ratty Đông Nhi concert tank top. 

Nile has been trying to cultivate that kind of cocksure mission-ready energy, and this is as good a time as any to bring it to bear. 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, and she almost ignores it, because it’s probably Andy messaging about the fact that Nile left before confirming plans. Truthfully, she just needed to get out of the house and away from the crockpot of immortal weirdness she’s been stewing in, because it’s obviously wrecking her brain. 

Time travel? _Time travel?!_ She said those words aloud to other humans, like it was a real thing that might be going on. She definitely hasn’t said it to Copley yet.

She pulls the phone out of her pocket. The lock screen displays a text preview not from Andy, but from Booker - a surprisingly artistic photo of a fluffy white dog sitting beside a bistro table at a cafe somewhere. He must be sober-ish today.

She immediately puts the lock screen back to sleep. “What does your secret agent friend think about all this?” 

“Agent Burman thinks I’ve gone private, and I’m trying to keep a client from getting caught up in Reeve’s mess.” Copley clicks off his turn signal, sighing. “I can hide behind her assumptions for now, but in the long term I’m going to need to come up with another cover story so I can stay useful. ‘Sweeping footprints in the ether’ is only possible if I actually have access to the ether in the first place.”

“Long-term strategy.” Nile takes another french fry. “I can relate.” 

Copley gives a quiet smile. “I’m sure you can.” 

It always surprises her, how easy it is to talk to Copley. Between jumping out of a skyscraper and learning how to hold a crocodile’s jaw shut, Nile hasn’t had much time to unpack her feelings about their inside man. Part of her just needs to talk to someone who isn’t about a million years old and can still be impressed by her stories. Nile loves her new family, she really does, but one more “take it easy, kid” and Andy is catching a fist to the jaw - mortality be damned. And it’s nice not to be the only Black person in the room, sometimes. 

However, there’s a part of Nile - the part that still dreams about Afghanistan - that wishes it weren’t so easy. Between his constant intel updates and the occasional pointed remark from Joe or Andy, it’s pretty impossible to forget that Copley was once CIA. In a way, Copley shares more history with Nile than all of the rest of the immortals combined. Her fatigues are probably still in the Goussainville safehouse, gathering dust next to hundred-year-old swords and shields. _My wife passed away_ , Copley had told her, when Nile asked him why he left. 

Maybe the question she should have been asking him - asking _herself_ \- was why the hell he signed up in the first place. 

“Here we are,” says Copley, pulling up next to a house on a quiet street and handing her a lanyard. “No one here should be asking too many questions, but I can divert any local attention if it happens. I was told that any workers on site might be a bit upset with us for trying to do an interview with a minor witness after business hours.” 

“I get it, I get it - leave the secret agent stuff to you.” Nile casts a curious eye over the house. Nothing about the outside of it, from the sun-faded yellow paint to the little patch of dry lawn, looks like it could contain a time-traveling child. 

“Are you ready, Ms. Freeman?”

“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly and loosening up her shoulders. She has jumped out of skyscrapers, faced down hundreds of guns, and resisted the temptation to simply hop on a plane and run back to her mom and baby brother. She can talk to one mysterious kid. 

“Yeah. Let’s go talk to Miss Benjamin Button.”


	23. 1099

“Fuck.” Yusuf paces around in a circle under the late midmorning sun, pulling nervously at his clothes. “Fuckfuckfuck.”

“It’s not so bad,” Nicky says mildly. 

“How can you say that?!” Yusuf presses his hands to his temples. Maybe if he can hit his head hard enough against something, the headache will go away. 

The first initial panicked dash around the hills surrounding their campsite had failed to turn up either the gelding or the dun mare. A somewhat wider and more methodical search, with Nicky circling the other way, had come up similarly empty. Nicky had tried to follow the faint sets of hoofprints away from the camp, but had quickly lost the trail on the hard, dry ground. The only things left were the items in the saddlebags that they had actually been sleeping on, as well as Nicky’s sword and crossbow. Yusuf never thought he’d be thankful for the Frank’s paranoid habit of being constantly armed, but here they are. Halfway through the morning. Without their goddamn horses.

 _Fuck_. 

“They wouldn’t just have wandered off,” Yusuf says aloud for what feels like the hundredth time. “Someone came and stole them while we slept.” 

“Probably,” agrees Nicky, with his customary maddening calm. “But whoever they were, they were a thief but not a murderer. They could easily have slit our throats while we were sleeping.”

“Oh, well that’s fine then!” Yusuf paces another tight circle in the dust, worrying at the hem of the undergarment he is still wearing. “They stole our horses but didn’t kill us while we slept, so we should just let it go?” 

“I’m saying that whoever the thief was, they are most likely unwilling to fight us directly.” Nicky crouches to rearrange his crossbow so it sits more easily on the saddlebag, now turned into an impromptu satchel. “They will want to sell the horses quickly at the nearest market, before the real owners turn up and challenge them. We might find them again in Pelusium.” 

Yusuf waves his hands wildly. “There are dozens of tribes and small settlements on the Sinai! The thieves could be anywhere!” 

“Yusuf, we don’t actually need the horses.” 

“We don’t _need_ to wear clothes, but life is surely much easier when we do!”

One corner of Nicky’s mouth twitches up. “I’m saying that even if we were in danger of dying from hunger or thirst on the way to Pelusium, we wouldn’t. We can easily get there on foot, even if we have to carry the saddlebags. Once we’re there, we can find some way to travel onwards.” 

The infuriating thing, Yusuf thinks, twisting the fabric between his fingers, is that he can’t even be angry at Nicky for the mess they are in - which perversely makes him angrier. It was Yusuf’s watch, and he fell asleep. Most of his frustration is directed at himself. And now he - _they_ \- are out two reasonably good horses and a reliable private means of transport over land, not to mention a good source of money when it came time to sell them. Apparently snuggling with an invading foreigner was enough to get his guard down. He can only imagine what his parents would have said. 

“Why aren’t you upset about this?” Yusuf turns sharply to Nicky. 

Nicky blinks. “Do you want me to be?” 

“I figured you would take the chance to gloat.” Yusuf scowls. “Go on. Laugh. Say something smart about how all this is my fault.” 

“You were tired, and so was I. You have been through a great deal lately. If there is any fault, it is as much mine as it is yours.” 

“I …” The absurdity of what he was about to say cuts him off before the words are spoken. Arguing that it is more his fault than Nicky’s would be a uniquely counterproductive way to be contrary. Yusuf realizes dully that what he’s actually feeling is embarrassment. Or maybe shame. His mind is a mess of taut string. “So you’re saying you don’t mind that we’ll have to walk for miles through the rocks and bushes, carrying everything on our backs? And probably deal with even more bandits along the way?” 

Nicky looks at him calmly. “I am saying that I have everything I need, right here with me.”

Yusuf has the very sudden and abrupt desire to cry. 

It’s not that he was _expecting_ Nicky to gleefully jump on the first slight vulnerability or mistake. Except apparently, a part of him was waiting for just that. He has been fighting so long, from the siege of al-Quds throughout their strange journey together, that he hadn’t stopped to count the cost of constant anger and vigilance. What was the purpose of last night, if not an acceptance that at some point they will need to help each other?

“I don’t suppose yelling would do any good,” Yusuf says, sitting heavily down in the dirt. “We haven’t ridden them that long. They wouldn’t come to the sound of our voices.” 

“No, they wouldn’t.” Nicky actually chuckles. The sound is startling enough that Yusuf looks up to catch the moment. It was not so long ago that Yusuf believed Nicky incapable of laughing at all. 

“Maybe you really are a thousand years old,” Yusuf surprises himself by saying. “Every time some new disaster happens to us, you never get worried.”

“Time does put some things into perspective.” 

“And I forgot.” Yusuf stands up, brushing away the dirt. “This isn’t the first time this has happened to you. Someone actually managed to steal the clothes off your back right before we met.” He hesitates, wrestling with his morbid curiosity. “You never did explain that magic trick. Who stripped you, a marginally competent Frankish soldier, naked in the middle of a battle? Unless you did it to yourself, madman?”

Nicky laughs again, louder this time, and he turns his head away - but not quickly enough to hide his reddening cheeks. 

Yusuf decides that maybe he doesn’t hate the sound of his laughter. Watching him blush at this specific question reminds Yusuf of their first days together, which feels like months ago at this point, because everything in Yusuf’s life has been blown into disarray by this sandstorm of a man. But the sacking of al-Quds was only last week. _Last fucking week._

“Are you sure you want to know?” Nicky replies when he finally turns to Yusuf again.

The look on his face immediately convinces Yusuf that he definitely does _not_ want to know, not even a little bit. “Without horses, we should take the via Maris instead of keeping to the dunes. It will make the trip easier, if we are to be on foot. You’ll wear the turban and hide your face when we cross the path of others so they do not flay your worthless Frank hide.” 

Nicky squints at him, considering, and then nods. “We should take a half-hour detour to the sea first, so you can finally wash the blood off of yourself. It will attract less attention on the road, and a wash will clear both our heads.” 

“If we go to the road now, maybe we’ll catch up with the bastards who stole our horses before they reach Pelusium.”

“Maybe.” Nicky’s lips flatten as he scans Yusuf from head to toe, and now Yusuf is the one with warm cheeks. “But if you expect me to keep you from freezing to death again tonight, I prefer you do not smell like a camel’s ballsack.”

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “We’ll go to the beach.” 

As with many things, Nicky is exasperatingly right: Yusuf _does_ feel better in the sea. He would be mad about it, except his mood is almost as buoyant as his body. He’s on his back in the water, face toward the sun and his feet toward Nicky. 

Because he is a modest, god-fearing man, Yusuf kept his long undershorts, and Nicky mercifully followed his lead instead of stripping naked again - a minor miracle, at this point. He was beginning to suspect the Frank had an allergy to cotton. He keeps his eyes closed, steadfastly ignoring the other man who is swimming like an otter, diving and splashing in the waves. Even though he is hundreds of miles from Mahdia, floating in the Mediterranean feels something like home. Perhaps Nicky feels the same way, his thoughts on the Genovese coast on the other side of the sea. 

Their bath is short-lived, and afterward they lie side-by-side on the sand, bare-chested and dripping saltwater, until the sun dries their bodies and clothes. As they get dressed, Yusuf tosses Nicky the turban, and in exchange he extends his sheathed sword pommel-first, the belt dangling. “You should carry this.”

He hesitates, instinctively touching the knife already at his hip. He’s practiced enough with a scimitar, but has less experience with double-edged swords, much less ones as impractically large and heavy as this. “My dagger is plenty.”

“Take it,” Nicky insists, wiggling it at him. “I can’t use both weapons at once, if it comes to that. It makes more sense if we distribute them equally between us. Or would you rather have the crossbow?”

With a put-upon sigh, Yusuf straps the longsword around his waist. “Fine. Happy?”

The other man’s eyes glitter as he surveys him up and down again, and for a split-second Yusuf feels as if he’s still only wearing his underthings. 

“Yes, very.”

* * *

Without horses, their journey will last nearly a week longer than planned, so their already thin food supplies are stretched even thinner. Breakfast is the skin of a single dried date; lunch is the fleshy inside. The rest of the day is spent sucking on the pit. 

Walking in companionable silence beside Yusuf, Nicky tucks the wrinkled seed into his cheek and begins a mental list of the countless restaurants and cuisines he has to look forward to in the next ten centuries. Everything from all-night noodle shops in Song dynasty China, to empanadas in the twentieth century fishing villages of the Uruguayan coast. Nicky catches the date pit between his molars, then balances it on his tongue. He decides that even if he has to perform every last act of his atonement again, at least he has plenty of delicious food - and the development of indoor plumbing - to enjoy along the way. 

They reach the old Roman via Maris and make decent progress for the day without encountering another soul. When the moon stands directly overhead, and they are both sleepy and staggering, Nicky mumbles, “Into the dunes?”

They stumble a distance from the road, hidden from easy view. Yusuf says, “I’ll take the first watch.” 

Nicky tries not to visibly shiver in the cold night air, because he’ll be damned if he gives the other man reason to call him _dramatic_ again. Gesturing at the longsword, he says, “Do you want me to show you how to use that thing first?”

“I know what I’m doing,” Yusuf sniffs. A blatant lie - he knows for a fact that Yusuf is woefully under-trained on that type of weapon. The first time he lived through this century, he witnessed Yusuf accidentally chop off half of his own foot trying to wield a longsword in a fight. 

Nicky will definitely intervene to stop Quỳnh from being thrown into the ocean again, but he decides that losing a few toes might do Yusuf’s ego some good, when the time comes. 

“As you please.” Crossbow in one hand and quiver in the other, Nicky plops to sit on the ground. “You’ll stay awake this time?” 

“Shut up. Of course I’ll stay awake.”

Nicky snorts. “Let me know if you get too cold again, Joe.” The other man makes a dissatisfied noise, as if this version of his name is a slur. Nicky curls around his quiver and crossbow and tries to fall asleep. He tosses and turns until a short time later, when Yusuf finally crawls over to him. Like the night before, he plasters himself against Nicky’s back. 

“I’m not sleepy,” he huffs into his ear, breath hot against his skin. It feels like a fire crackling in a hearth, like the sun radiating through a window, like knitted sweaters and hot cider on the couch - like _home_. 

“Good thing we don’t have any horses left to lose,” Nicky mumbles in reply. He drifts off so quickly, he doesn’t hear Yusuf’s sarcastic reply. 

In the frigid small hours before daybreak, the other man nudges him. “Nicky, it’s your turn for watch.”

Nicky blinks into consciousness at the still-miraculous sound of his name on Yusuf’s tongue. Yusuf is still snuggled tightly against his back, a warm respite from the frigid desert night. He automatically touches his crossbow, verifying its proximity. “I’m awake.”

Without any further fuss, Yusuf drowsily tucks his cold nose against Nicky’s neck and starts snoring. Nicky stays perfectly still, as still as he would on a sniping mission, his breathing shallow and measured. Shoulder blades to collarbone, small of the back to stomach, they are only fractionally out of their usual nightly alignment. He resists the aching temptation to ease back into Yusuf even more thoroughly, to mold himself fully into the planes and angles of a body he knows even better than his own. 

Instead, he concentrates on the dark, empty horizon. Sometime before dawn, Yusuf’s arm flops across his waist, his palm flat against Nicky’s belly button. With a valiant amount of self-control, Nicky restrains the impulse to take hold of his hand. He doesn’t cradle it to his chest, or kiss his knuckles, or murmur oaths of devotion against his skin. _Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But someday._

The next day, they pass a caravan and a few other small bands of travelers on the road. Nicky unwinds enough of the turban to drape across his jaw and keeps his pale eyes downcast, letting Yusuf speak when it’s necessary. That night, however, is somewhat more eventful. Just as they decide to step away from the road and find a spot to sleep, they crest a dune to discover two camels and two travelers beside a small fire, still far enough away that they haven’t been noticed yet. The scent of cooked meat drifts across the air. 

Shifting his shoulders to make the crossbow on his back more easily accessible, if need be, Nicky automatically drops to his stomach and squints at the small camp. Yusuf follows him to the ground, a bit slower but obviously conceding that Nicky has the right tactical idea, to keep from giving away their presence. Nicky’s stomach does a peculiar flip as he notices an axe on the ground next to one of the figures. Maybe it’s a trick of the firelight and shadows, but it seems to be double-headed and curved in a distinctive shape.

_No. Surely not._

A sudden dizziness washes over him, his insides turning soft and trembling with hope and tentative relief. Without realizing it, he has seized Yusuf’s forearm, clutching him hard. 

“What are you doing?” Yusuf hisses, almost silently. “Let me go.”

“We need to get closer,” says Nicky in a strangled voice. The figures are only silhouettes against the firelight, indistinct and shapeless. Is one of them taller than the other? Is that the outline of a bow? 

“Why the fuck would we get closer?” Yusuf yanks his arm away. “They could be robbers.” 

“It’s _them_ , Yusuf!” Nicky hisses back. “The women from our dreams! They’re here!”

Yusuf stares at him for a long, startled moment, then turns to squint at the figures. “How can you tell?”

“The axe!” Nicky is practically straining forward, fingers clawing at the ground. _Quỳnh. Andy._ “Don’t you recognize it?”

Yusuf peers at the campfire and the two huddled figures around it. “I can’t even tell if they’re women. How do you know it’s the same axe?” 

“So let’s go check! If they aren’t who I think they are, then we can easily fight them. If they are, then we need to join them.” 

“Join them?” Yusuf’s whisper is incredulous. “Why join them?” 

“Because they are -” Nicky’s throat closes up over the word _family_. “Because they are like us!”

“Every time.” Yusuf shakes his head. “Every time I think you might be getting a little less crazy, you prove me wrong. Do you _want_ to die again? Because -”

“We need to be together!”

“- because that’s what will happen if you go around trying to get adopted by strangers! Maybe horse thieves!” 

“We won’t stay dead.” Nicky says the words with rare complete confidence. “This is destiny. We need to go down there.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do.”

“No, we don’t!”

Nicky scrambles to his knees and takes a breath, opening his mouth to shout. Yusuf makes a strangled sound and hurls himself bodily at Nicky, clamping a hand over Nicky’s mouth and rolling them both over. 

“Don’t you dare!”

A truly embarrassing scuffle ensues - Nicky trying to squirm free without directly fighting Yusuf and Yusuf trying to keep a hand over Nicky’s mouth. Nicky puts one hand on Yusuf’s wrist and the other on his forearm, looking directly into his eyes and trying to communicate the depths of his desperation. His family. His _family_. Andromache and Quỳnh, Yusuf and Nicolò. It could be the four of them again, for hundreds of years. They would make a better future. They would make a better _present._ They would stop Quỳnh from being thrown into the sea, find a better start for Booker, give Nile a whole and thriving welcome rather than a collection of grieving pieces. 

_Please, my heart_ , _believe me, believe me ..._

“Having fun, you two?”

Both of them jump - a half second too late. 

A dark figure emerges out of the night, pulling down a face veil. Yusuf’s hand darts toward the longsword on his belt, but the dark figure is quicker. A thin, shining blade slices through the air, the tip pointed directly at Yusuf’s throat.

“Well,” says Quỳnh, with a brilliant grin. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”


	24. 1099

“Found them!” says Quỳnh triumphantly as she returns to camp. A longsword is slung across her back, and a crossbow dangles from one arm. “About time, too.” 

“Lucky we were close.” Andromache smiles, watching as the two newest immortals shuffle carefully into the firelight. “What the hell happened to their horses?”

“Not sure. Probably stolen, going by the saddlebags.” Quỳnh’s stance is easy and relaxed as she dumps the weapons on Andromache’s side of the fire, but Andromache can tell that she is tracking the two men out of the corner of her eye. “I think they were fighting again when I found them.”

“Again? They were doing so well the last few days.”

“At least they didn’t have weapons out.” Quỳnh’s own short sword dangles easily at her side, deceptively loose. Andromache knows, from long, long experience, how quickly Quỳnh can move when she wants to. 

They had begun dreaming of the strange men two weeks ago - a blink of an eye even in the lifespan of a normal human. The dreams had been dark, filled with bloody violence and palpable, living rage … and despair. They had reached for each other instinctively after waking up, their surprise and eagerness at two new companions almost buried under their confusion and frustration. To be given near-endless life at the same time as another person, to be spared the soul-crushing loneliness of solitary immortality, only to spend it killing one another? 

It wasn’t until Quỳnh had gasped awake from a brief nap, rambling frantically about a crucifix and the Qubbat al-Sakhrah, that they realized what had happened. 

“No fight,” says the pale-eyed one suddenly, in very bad Vietnamese. He hasn’t glanced at his confiscated crossbow once. His face is lit up with a bizarre expression of … joy? Are those tears? “I being glad to see you.” 

An awkward pause. “You speak Vietnamese?” Quỳnh says incredulously, eyeing the pale-eyed one up and down. Her sword-point raises ever so slightly.

“I am learning for much time ago.” He _is_ crying. As Andromache watches, a tear slips out of the corner of one grey-green eye and rolls slowly down the man’s dusty cheek. He scrubs it quickly away. “Need practice.” 

Andromache meets Quỳnh’s gaze, seeing her own suspicion mirrored there. This is not the furious young soldier from their dreams. She stands up, brushing the dust off of her leggings, and moves to face the men squarely. 

“What are you saying to piss them off?” hisses the curly-haired one in an Arabic dialect, darting a glance at his lost longsword. “What’s going on?”

“He’s saying that you two weren’t fighting,” Andromache interjects in Arabic. “Which I find hard to believe. We’ve seen you two in our dreams. All you could do about a week ago was kill each other.”

The curly-haired man blinks warily. “What was that about killing our dreams?” 

“He’s speaking darija,” says Quỳnh dryly in the same language. “Your accent is off.”

“My accent was just fine the last time we were in Tiaret.”

Quýnh snorts. “That was a hundred and twenty years ago, dearest. I think things might have changed a little bit.” 

“Why would they change it? Everyone seemed to be able to communicate just fine.” Andromache _hmphs_. “I thought that was the point of having written words.”

A soft sound makes them all turn. The pale-eyed one is … laughing. Little quiet chuckles, growing louder and stronger until finally the man falls to his knees and braces his hands in the dirt, gales of laughter shaking his shoulders. The tears that were standing in his eyes earlier are freely falling now, leaving streaks of salt in the road-dust on his face. 

“I forgot,” he says in darija, between gasps. “I forgot what it was like, being this happy.” 

All of them stare at him for a minute, shocked. The other man goggles incredulously, then closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. It has been centuries since Andromache offered any prayers, but she recognizes a plea for patience when she sees one. “ _Salaamu alaikum_. Please do not be offended at this madman’s behavior - his brains are disturbed. We don’t want any trouble.”

“ _Walaikum salaam_ ,” replies Quỳnh carefully. She looks at them both, her eyes lingering on the man kneeling in the dirt. “Do you know who we are?” 

“No.” The curly-haired man pauses for a long minute, examining each of their faces. “I don’t know you at all. But you said … you said something about dreams?”

“We’ve been dreaming of you since you died for the first time,” says Andromache, trying to mimic his intonation. “And I think you’ve been dreaming of us. Is he going to be alright?”

“I’m fine,” says the pale-eyed man hoarsely, getting slowly to his feet and wiping at his eyes. “I’m sorry, I truly am. We should - _Mio Dio_ ,” he says, laughing again and dragging his hands down his face. “I suppose we need to introduce ourselves to each other.” 

“I’m Quỳnh,” says Quỳnh, gesturing to herself. Despite their initial suspicion, Andromache can hear the familiar eager curiosity in her voice. “From … well it would be Trà Vinh now, in the Mekong River Delta. And this most fearsome and beautiful older sister is Andromache the Scythian.” 

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani,” says the curly-haired man slowly. “And this one would be -”

“Nicky.” The pale-eyed man is looking at Quỳnh with a fervent longing that instinctively makes Andromache want to step between them. “Nicolò di Genova. But call me Nicky.” 

“ _Nicky._ ” Quỳnh tests the name, rolling the odd clipped consonants around in her mouth. The pale-eyed man - _Nicky_ \- looks as though he might start crying again. “Nicky and Yusuf. Well met.” 

The curly-haired man - _Yusuf -_ scowls. “ _I_ only met him last week, and it was not by choice. We were unfortunately thrown together after his army sacked al-Quds.” 

“But you chose to stay together?” Andromache says, shifting ever so slightly closer to Quỳnh. If Nicky doesn’t stop looking at her like that, Andromache is going to punch him in the face. 

“We did.” Yusuf’s scowl grows even deeper. “I am trying to go back to my home and my family, but this one keeps following me.” 

Andromache’s heart abruptly sinks. “You are going home to your family?” 

The pain of losing her own first family is dulled by so many millennia, but she has a vague memory of experiencing it. Lykon went through it, too. Quỳnh is younger, her losses more recent. Occasionally she falls into a mood, spurred by the sight of a child’s sized cross-collared robe in a certain pattern of cloth, or a chip in the rim of a teacup. She speaks of it rarely, but grief still haunts her like a pale shadow, summoned once a decade or so by sense memories. Watching Quỳnh suffer, Andromache has decided it is best if this rebirth into an immortal life means a rebirth into a new family altogether, and the old is put aside. Living amongst mortals is one thing; mourning them occasionally is unavoidable. Watching everyone you’ve loved in your first life die around you, children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, brings on a sort of madness. Andromache isn’t interested in hand-holding these two men through that madness. 

She performs a few quick mental calculations, weighing the advantages of simply setting them loose for a century to sort it out on their own. Not that Quỳnh would let her do that, of course. But the idea has its appeal.

“My family will be worried,” Yusuf says, with a sharp sideways glance at Nicky. “And I am betrothed. I mean to say, I will be. There is a plan for when I get home to Mahdia.”

Quỳnh shoots Andromache a look, as clear and loud as speech: _Unfortunate._

“We have food to share,” Andromache says, gesturing to the fire. It’s either this, or she’s going to take Nicky by the scruff of the neck and teach him some respect, because this bastard is still fixated on Quỳnh. “Join us?”

The men are obviously ravenous, eyes glinting at the food they sit in a loose circle and pass around heated goat jerky and pan-fried bread. They at least display some manners, dividing the food evenly and eating delicately enough to keep crumbs out of their beards. 

Andromache has positioned herself between Nicky and Quỳnh, just in case. Yusuf seems guarded but curious; Nicky is radiant, still bursting with joy he cannot contain. All in all, they are very different than Andromache expected from the glimpses she caught in her dreams - the repeated murders, the force-feeding of citrus fruits, the nonstop arguments, and the fact that the pale-eyed man ended up trussed like a pig more than once.

 _What if they’re assholes?_ Quỳnh had asked a few days ago, before their ship put into harbor. 

Andromache had snuggled closer on the bunk, arm thrown lazily across her ribs, nose pressed into the warm spot where her jaw and neck joined. _I can gentle a wild horse in a matter of hours. You think men are so different?_ she replied. Quỳnh had snickered, wiggling her toes against Andromache’s shins. Tired and lulled by the swaying of the ship, Andromache’s confession came softly: _I didn’t know if I would ever be ready to welcome anyone else into our company again, after …_ A pause, and a soft sigh. _I still do not know._

Shifting her head just enough to brush a kiss to the other woman’s forehead, Quỳnh murmured, _No one could ever replace him, not even two men put together. But we will welcome them as brothers, because who knows what will become of them if we leave them to their own devices? They will only kill each other for so long before they grow too angry or too bored, and go their separate ways. We cannot let them be alone._

 _I’m sure you are right, my love,_ Andromache had mumbled into her skin. _Just try to remember that they are grown men, not puppies._

Quỳnh had huffed a laugh, the sound vibrating against Andromache’s ribs. _No, according to you, they are horses._

“How is it you are here?” Nicky asks, beaming. His eyes are wide, as if he is trying to absorb the sight of everyone together at once. Perhaps he _is_ mad, as Yusuf claims.

“We were on our way to business in Cairo with an old friend. In our dreams, Quỳnh recognized the Qubbat al-Sakhrah and al-Quds, and she talked me into taking this detour on the way. She has been eager to meet you both. We didn’t expect to find you so soon.”

“We are headed to Pelusium, to take passage on a ship,” Yusuf says.

“To Mahdia, you said,” Quỳnh finishes for him. She gestures at the other man with her piece of bread. “And your home, Nicky? Genova, yes?”

“ _Sì_ ,” he replies, after swallowing a mouthful of food. “But I am not returning to Genova. I am determined to see Yusuf home to Mahdia.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” Andromache says, lifting an eyebrow at him.

“Very stubborn, like an ass,” Yusuf mutters, his forehead drawn down in annoyance. 

“Nicky, you have no sweetheart waiting for you?” Quỳnh asks brightly, tilting her head in the way she does when she’s on a battlefield, devising tactics. Andromache doesn’t try to fool herself; she knows Quỳnh won’t leave these two men behind. Within a quarter hour, at most, she will have them twisted around her little fingers. They’ll be flinging their plans for family to the wind and begging to come to Cairo. 

“Not in Genova,” Nicky replies. Yusuf very deliberately, very obstinately, inspects his jerky and pinches off a piece of fat. “And perhaps I will visit my family there in a few years. I have time. But this …” He breathes deep, surveying the other three people around the fire “... _this_ is my future. My eternal family.”

It strikes Andromache that Nicky has already made the leap from accepting the reality of his healing ability to the idea of an extended life - which is odd, because this was not something that occurred to her until she had lived many years, and should have grown grey hair but didn’t. She weighs whether or not to enlighten him even further, to tell him that their eternity isn’t actually eternal. She hasn’t had to say those words aloud to a new immortal before; she wonders how they will taste on her tongue, along with Lykon’s name. 

Beside her, Quỳnh’s expression has gone soft with delight and dawning fondness in Nicky’s direction. 

Something else entirely is dawning on Yusuf’s face. “That’s right, these are your people,” he says, turning to the other man. “You should accompany them to Cairo, since you have been so desperate to go there all along. This is perfect!”

“We are staying together,” Nicky replies. His exuberance is suddenly tempered; his concentration collects on Yusuf like a crocodile that has spotted an ibex at the water’s edge, and ah. _Aha._ Andromache understands in a flash, with all her five thousand years of living in this world and encountering all its people, that Nicky isn’t remotely mad. He is, however, _extremely_ dangerous. 

With perfectly measured cheerfulness, he says, “In fact, if you will not come to Cairo, then Andromache and Quỳnh should come to Mahdia with us! We cannot be parted so soon; we should all stay together for a while.” 

Quỳnh has also noted and interpreted the shift in Nicky’s demeanor, and her eyes flicker in Andromache’s direction. One corner of her mouth quirks; she is entertained, eager to see how this plays out. Andromache lifts one shoulder a millimeter and then leans back onto an elbow, ready for the show. 

Yusuf sits up straight, rounding on Nicky with a thunderous expression. “That is the stupidest idea you’ve had in the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Eight whole days? Your basis of comparison is very thin. I can be far more stupid, if given the chance,” Nicky tuts. “Anyway, it is not very hospitable of you to refuse to invite Andromache and Quỳnh. What would your mother say about such behavior?”

Yusuf’s nostrils flare. “You know nothing of my mother.” He stumbles over the last syllable, blinking, as if he suddenly doubts his own words. As if perhaps Nicky _does_ somehow know about his mother. He visibly gathers himself and continues, “Let them go visit your family in Genova, then. Luciano, right? Let them meet him!”

“I would happily take them home to Luciano,” Nicky says. “But only if you are coming, too. We may be the only four people in the world who have this gift of immortality, and we have been brought together, here in the middle of the desert, for a reason. It would be an affront to God if we were all parted so soon.”

“Even if I invited them, they have pressing business in Cairo,” Yusuf counters. “Surely they could not put off such business. We could meet later - a year from now in Tripoli would do.”

“Mahdia _is_ on the way to Tiaret, and as Quỳnh pointed out, we haven’t visited in over a hundred years,” Andromache interrupts casually. “What do you think, Quỳnh? Should our business in Cairo wait?”

“Hmmm.” Quỳnh taps her chin, pretending to think. “It is short notice, and we are so close. But in such special circumstances” - her eyes flick to Nicky, whose exuberance quickly returns at the mischievous gleam there - “I think we could make the exception.”


	25. 2021

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for gun violence in this chapter.

It’s at times like these Joe almost wishes he carried cigarettes with him more often. 

Something about sitting forlornly on a back stoop, contemplating the incomprehensible wasteland of his life, seemed to demand a good smoke. All of them had fallen in and out of the habit at some point or another. There was a period in Italy in the 1970s where it seemed like every time Joe turned around, Nicky was lighting another cigarette. Andy had become disillusioned with modern tobacco around the same time, grumbling that none of it “tasted right” to her anymore. Booker had given pipes, cigars, and then cigarettes all a cursory try before returning to his hip flask. “People think they can talk to me when I smoke,” he said with a crooked grin. “I’d rather not start an awkward conversation.” 

Joe doesn’t remember what he said in reply. Or maybe it was Nicky who had said something - one more attempt to make sure their youngest brother wasn’t closing himself entirely away. Dominoes in a row, all falling down and down and down to the inevitable final crash. 

_You and Nicky always had each other_ . _And all we had was our grief._

 _Well_ , thinks Joe bitterly. _Nicky isn’t Nicky, anymore. Hope you’re happy, Book._

No reply, of course. No dry chuckle, no clever retort in French, no good-natured dig about whose team won last night because of course Booker isn’t here - and won’t be, and _shouldn’t be_ , for at least another century. A century during which Andy will, at some point, die. Quỳnh is drowning at the bottom of the sea, Nile will be young for at least a few decades to come, and Nicky is … gone. Without Nicky, Joe will have to hold their family together _alone_ \- something he hasn’t truly been since Yusuf al-Kaysani disemboweled a Genovese crusader at the northeastern wall of Jerusalem a thousand years ago. Joe isn’t _ready_ to be the eldest. He has never been ready to be alone. 

And he knows that he’s panicking, damn it. Joe knows that he is only borrowing imagined troubles from the future, but he can’t fucking help it. When his mind gets like this, circling and circling around a fear or frustration or failure, Nicky has always been there to keep him steady. 

Nicky. _Nicolò_ , flinching away from him. Nicolò, fleeing the house just to get away from Joe. Nicolò, full of raw guilt and confusion, taking his first fumbling steps on a path that Joe had thought already walked a millennia ago. A misplaced step in a blizzard, a stormy night with no moon to guide him. _Infidel ..._

Joe is on his feet before he can finish the thought, shoving open the back door with a bang and striding into the kitchen. _Fuck this_. Nicky wouldn’t give up, if he were here. Nile hasn’t given up. Andy is still fighting. Joe isn’t going to let a thousand years of the greatest gift ever given to him simply slip away without a fight. 

The acrylic box from the lab is still sitting on the counter where they left it. It has deteriorated even further - the spiderweb of cracks that they noticed Sunday morning has spread across the entire box. As Joe lifts the top lid, the hinges crumble apart entirely. The foam interior, already looking brittle and aged, rests on a nest of acrylic shards. The black rock stares back up at him, as mute and mysterious as it had been two days ago when they brought it back. 

_Fuck._ He should have insisted on being more careful from the start. The black rock should have gone into a safe. It should have gone into a _vault_. It should have been carried up the side of Erta Ale and thrown into the lake of fire like Tolkien’s golden ring. Joe hesitates for a split second, looking at the odd lack of reflection around the rock, then picks it up. 

Nothing happens. No burning pain, no lightning from heaven, no blissfully familiar Nicky in jeans and t-shirt coming to wrap him in a familiar embrace. Joe tightens his grip - for a brief, wild moment, he considers slamming the damned thing against the floor. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Trying to understand.” Joe puts the rock quickly back as Andy strides into the room, feeling oddly as though he’s been caught with his hand in the candy jar. “This fucking rock is the only thing we brought back from the lab. Nicky was looking at it the night before all this happened. Maybe this is part of what ... de-aged him, or time-travelled him, or whatever wiped out a thousand years of his memories!”

“So why the fuck were you _holding_ it?” Andy grabs his wrists, inspecting his palms for damage.

“You said yourself it wasn’t radioactive.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.” Andy curses in a language that Joe hasn’t heard in centuries. “At least you’re safe. What if the same thing had happened to you?”

“Then at least we would match!” Joe doesn’t mean to shout, but somehow he is shouting anyway.

“You don’t mean that.” Andy has gone hard and cold, the way she always does when faced with a verbal fight. “We’ve lost Booker, for now. We’ve lost Nicky. We can’t lose you too.” 

“I know, I know.” Joe slumps against the counter. “It didn’t do anything, anyway.” 

“Didn’t do what?”

“The rock.” Joe gestures. “I don’t know what I expected. I thought it would do ... something? That I would feel something? Maybe get a clue about how to bring Nicky back?” 

“Well damn.” Andy looks at the black rock, giving the remains of the acrylic box a poke. “At least we know it isn’t something that will kill one of us if we touch it.”

“Joe?” Nicolò comes down the stairs, shooting a cautious glance at Andy. “Is everything alright? I was praying, and I heard shouting.”

An idea dawns on Joe. “Nicolò, are you still healing?”

Nicolò frowns. “You were there when I cut myself shaving this morning.”

A fierce glint appears in Andy’s eyes as she catches Joe’s drift. She takes out a pocket knife and flicks it open, beckoning Nicolò closer. “Come here.” 

Nicolò takes one look at the knife in her hand and backpedals towards the rear door. “Why should I?”

“We just want to test something. It won’t take long.” Andy’s voice is the soft wheedling tone she uses when she’s luring dinner into her noose. Nicolò doesn’t reply, but his expression says that he knows exactly who is the predator and who is the prey. 

“Let me.” Joe takes the knife from Andy’s hand. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to you, and we want to make sure you are still healing.” 

Nicolò doesn’t take his eyes off Andy. “Why would you need to test that?”

“So you don’t get hurt. See?” Careful to telegraph every movement, Joe holds out the knife and makes a small incision on the back of his left forearm. The tiny cut heals almost instantly, and Joe holds the knife out to Nicolò. “Now you try.” 

Nicolò takes the knife from Joe at arm’s length, keeping his eye on Andy the entire time. He gives Joe a dubious look, then turns his own left arm over and makes the same tiny cut. Joe watches with his usual relief as the red line seals over with healthy skin. 

“Good.” Before Joe can voice a protest, Andy grabs a dishtowel off the counter and scoops up the black rock, dumping it unceremoniously in Nicolò’s hands. “Hold this.” 

Nicolò swears and fumbles the rock, juggling it for a few heart-stopping seconds before getting a firm grip. Joe and Andy lean in, holding their breath.

Nothing happens. 

“If this is some kind of fucking game you’re playing, I’m not laughing,” Nicolò growls, holding the rock out in front of him like a dead fish. “This thing is going out the window in three seconds if no one takes it away.”

“Sorry, Nico.” Heart sinking, Joe picks up the dishtowel and takes back the rock, returning it to the remains of the box. “It was just a theory.” 

“What is that, anyway?” Nicolò peers around Joe at the case. “If strange rocks have powers in the future, then I fail to see how that _definitely_ isn’t witchcraft.” 

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” says Andy grimly. 

“And what did you mean by ‘still healing,’ Joe?” asks Nicolò, rounding to Joe. “I thought that was the whole problem. We can’t _stop_ healing, even when we cut each other’s throats.” 

Andy looks to Joe, eyebrows lifted, because she told Nile about Lykon in Goussainville, and now … what? _He’s_ supposed to tell Nicolò about Andy? About the fact that she’s mortal, dying every minute of every day, and in the end it’s just a matter of _how -_ stabbed, shot, cancer, car accident, how any lethal technicality could finally end it, at any moment? 

It’s too much; it’s too heavy. Especially today. 

“Don’t worry.” He waves a hand. “It isn’t important right now.”

Nicolò’s expression, vacillating between irritation and curiosity, shutters into tightly controlled anger. His jaw clenches in a familiar way that tugs at Joe’s gut. “Again, I see I am not needed here. Finish playing with your rock, then.” 

He turns and retreats up the stairs. Andy sighs at his back, “It has been so long. I had forgotten how he was.”

“We could try licking the rock? Or hitting it with a hammer?” Joe blurts out, because surely he can tackle this problem somehow, do something - _anything_ \- and stop himself feeling so helpless. 

“I’m going to the lab,” Andy says, turning her full attention back to him. “It may be a crime scene, but we’re two days out from the incident and it’s late in the day. They’ll only have a couple of suits keeping an eye on the place, max. Maybe I’ll find something there to help. Some … files, or post-it notes, I don’t know.”

“I’ll get my jacket,” Joe says. She seizes his arm and yanks him back. The prick of her fingernails digging through his sleeve sharpens his concentration, pulls his attention. 

“You’re staying here.” Her flinty green eyes meet his. This is a direct order, beyond argument. “We can’t leave him unsupervised, and he sure as hell can’t come with us to a crime scene. Anyway, you bulldozed your way into that lab with a gun not two days ago.” She gives him a little shove. “So Nile interviews the girl, I check out the lab, and you go talk to Nicolò.” 

_What am I supposed to say?_ he wants to shout, but she’s out the front door before he can muster the courage. He’s so rarely at a loss for words, but this situation has severed the otherwise heavily-trafficked conduits between his heart and his brain and his mouth. 

The house is silent, the black rock unobtrusive in its case. After nine hundred twenty years of living with Nicolò, Joe knows exactly how long the prayers at _nones_ take. He puts the dishtowel they used to handle the rock in the washing machine, and he chugs orange juice directly from the bottle, and he straightens the pillows on the couch. After the appropriate number of minutes, he climbs step by slow step to the third floor.

Through the bedroom door, he discovers Nicolò kneeling beside the bed. He’s certainly done praying; in fact, he’s examining something in his hands, lifting it toward his face. 

It’s his M17. 

Everyone except Booker is meticulous with their sidearms, none more so than Nicky. Off-mission, the only gun he leaves loaded is this particular pistol; he tucks it under the mattress no matter where they’re sleeping. Since the Goussainville safehouse ambush, he’s kept it closer to hand than usual. 

And now, praying in this room beside this bed they shared, Nicolò has discovered his own gun. 

He lifts it, unintentionally aiming between his eyes so he can squint down the barrel, as if a glimpse inside will reveal its secrets. The memory of Nicky’s brains splattered on the floor of Merrick’s lab boils to the surface of Joe’s mind; he can practically see Nicky’s blood spread across the wall of _this_ room, and hear the thump of his body hitting the floor. 

_Shit! Shitshitshitshit!_

“Hey!” He charges through the door in panic, lunging for Nicolò and the weapon. “Drop that!” 

“What?” Nicolò is half-turned, rising to his feet, when Joe reaches him and seizes hold of the gun. Intuitively, Nicolò clutches it tighter and pulls back, staggering to his feet and into the bedside table, knocking over the lamp with a crash. “Let go!”

“ _You_ let go!” Joe twists his body and wrenches their joined arms sideways, knocking Nicolò flat onto the bed. This dislodges his grip on the gun, so Joe can press the magazine release, sending the cartridge of spare bullets bouncing to the floor. There’s still one left in the chamber, though. 

Nicolò is up in a flash, launching at Joe - maybe he’s driven by instinct, maybe he’s genuinely upset about having the mysterious object snatched away without explanation. Joe doesn’t have time to think before the other man tackles him sideways, shoulder hitting low into his armpit and arms around his torso, both of them careening into a chest of drawers. At least two of Joe’s ribs break against the hard wooden edge and he loses his grip on the pistol, which clatters away into a corner. 

He ignores the jolt of pain in his chest and grapples with Nicolò, both shoving and punching and grunting fiercely as they tumble to the floor. His higher thought centers are overridden by his fight instinct and also _this_ \- merciful God, _this_ \- the feel of the man buffeting and wrestling against him, his hot skin and body weight, the movement of his muscles in patterns that Joe has memorized more intimately than the workings of his own flesh and blood. 

Nicolò is heaving for breath, exhaling the filthiest obscenities with every jab - elbows, knees, any way he can strike. He might be a decent fighter by thousand-year-old Genovese standards, but Joe has spent the intervening centuries training and sparring with Nicky’s body, his mind, his set of instincts. 

Joe knows better than to fight back, because it isn’t a fair match. 

He knows better than to fight back, but he does anyway. Nicolò lands an elbow that snaps his head sideways, knocks his jaw out of alignment; he lands two punches to Nicolò’s gut, feels the rush of air leave the other man’s lungs as his air is knocked out. He shoves Joe’s chin with his palm, forcing his head up so his neck pops painfully. Joe bends his knees around Nicolò’s legs in a certain way, with a certain amount of leverage, and executes a move that he learned in Greece hundreds of years ago - a move that this younger Nicolò has never encountered before. 

He flips hard onto his back, skull cracking against the wood planks. “Fucking asshole!” he wheezes. “Goddamned heathen!”

“Quit fighting me, you miserable shit,” Joe spits back. He leans all his weight forward, snatching Nicolò’s arms and pinning his elbows to the ground. The man bucks beneath him, wiggling uselessly. 

Red-faced and livid, Nicolò pants, “Is this how you did it the first time?” 

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you take me prisoner in Jerusalem? Hold me captive until you broke my will, like I am a prisoner here? Is this your plan again, to break me?”

Shocked, Joe eases back, loosening his grip. “That’s not what happened - you weren’t my prisoner in Jerusalem. You aren’t a prisoner here.”

“How am I free?! I cannot leave the building, and I can hardly leave a room without being watched like an infant. No one will explain anything, or teach me anything useful. What am I supposed to do? I cannot live like this!” 

“Goddammit, I’m trying to _protect_ you,” Joe says, more shrill than he means to. 

Nicky’s eyes glitter like mosaic chips in the sun. “From what? From _who_? You’re the only enemy I see here!”

 _From yourself_ , he almost says, but his guard is down, and before he can speak Nicolò bucks him sideways, rolling on top of him and punching him in the face. His head rings, dazed, and his broken ribs choose this exact moment to pop back into place and knit together in a sharp, agonizing jab. Black spots filter across his vision and he wheezes, groping blindly for Nicky - for comfort. The other man straddles his belly, both hands locked around his neck, and squeezes.

Joe knows at least half a dozen moves to free himself from this position. Maybe it’s oxygen deprivation, maybe it’s something else, but tears leak from the corners of his eyes and he doesn’t fight any more. His hands twitch, aching to pull Nicolò into an embrace, but he schools them to stillness instead. They fall to the floor, his fingers loose, his palms open. 

“Hello. My name is Joe. It’s nice to meet you,” he rasps in English, with the little air he can muster into his lungs. 

“I do not know what you’re saying!”

“I will teach you,” he replies in Ligurian. Joe is terrified and miserable, and he’s perfectly aware that Nicolò is, too. And Nicolò is right: He cannot live like this. He has to learn how to _be,_ here and now. But teaching him means handing him the tools to leave Joe behind, if and when he chooses. There is no guarantee that Nicolò will stay. 

How can he say he loves this man, if he holds him tightly enough to suffocate him? De-aging or time travel or whatever, the old Nicky is undeniably gone. Joe can’t keep looking at the man in front of him and hoping to see someone else. He can’t wallow in his fear of eternity, can’t keep crushing Nicolò into the shape of the man he loved - _loves_ \- when it is only hurting them both. 

Gray spots begin to dance at the edge of his vision. There is a high ringing in his ears. Joe’s hands rise reflexively to rest on Nicolò’s wrists, but at this point he doesn’t have the will or the strength to fight very hard. It’s been a long time since his Nico has properly killed him, after all.

_You’re an incurable romantic ..._

The pressure on his throat releases suddenly. Joe gasps for air, choking as oxygen rushes back into his bruised windpipe. Nicolò pushes himself off of Joe, crab-walking awkwardly away until his back hits the bed frame. He sprawls against it, panting, glaring at Joe in a mixture of frustration and resentment. 

“What do you mean, teach me?”

“I mean” - Joe coughs, massaging gingerly at his throat - “you were right. You’re not free. Not if you can’t leave the house, or talk to anyone but me and Andy. I can at least teach you how to do that.”

“To leave the house?” Nicolò scoffs. “I managed that without any of you.” 

“No. To talk to other people.” Joe takes a ragged deep breath, closing his eyes. If Nicky were here, he would have a thousand plans running through his head without the need for words. Plans for acceptance, plans for rejection, contingencies for how to run a nine-hundred-year-old seduction a second time. But Nicky isn’t here, and all that Joe’s frantic heart can offer is what Nicolò needs right now, immediately, in the most practical sense of the word. If it means he chooses to leave and Joe is signing the deed to his own destruction, so be it. “Spanish would probably be easiest, but most people around here in the twenty-first century expect English.”

“ _English_ ,” repeats Nicolò dubiously. “Where the fuck does this language even come from?” 

“Long story,” says Joe wearily. 

“It sounds like a bunch of gibberish mashed together.”

“Yeah, you didn’t enjoy it the first time around, either.”

“Well it had better not take me a thousand years. I’m not staying in this house until I can talk out of the corners of my mouth.” Joe hears the faint crack of knee joints, the impact of feet on the floor as Nicolò gets up. “And what were you so frantic about, anyway?”

“Trying to save you a hole in the head.” The last time learning a language had been so one-sided between them had been hundreds of years ago. He and Nicky had learned modern English not so much as a formal process, but as a series of evolutions layered together over the decades. It will be strange, teaching it to Nicolò now. “Weapons nowadays can be dangerous if you don’t handle them correctly.”

“How? This thing doesn’t look big enough to do anything.” 

_Fuck!_ Joe scrambles to sit up, heart hammering in his chest. The damn M17 is in Nicolò’s hand again. By some evil fucking chance, he is holding it somewhat correctly. Nicolò turns it curiously over, index finger sliding over the trigger. 

“Nicolò,” says Joe urgently. “You need to be -” 

_Careful_ never makes it out of his mouth. There is a blast of sound, a feeling like a horse kicking him in the face, and Joe’s vision blacks out.


	26. 2021

“Hey,” Nile says softly, sitting down on the couch. “I’m Nora.”

Sara Williamson doesn’t respond. She isn’t dressed in the vintage outfit that had caught Nile’s eye in the photos. Someone, probably the worried foster mother in the other room, had found her fresh clothes and a bright glitter-pink hair tie. The way she’s slumped on the couch in front of the TV reminds Nile painfully of her mother’s voice. _Sit up straight, baby ..._

“I know …” Nile takes a deep breath. “I know that the last couple days have been pretty hard for you. I just wanted to ask you a few questions, see what you remember, make sure you’re okay … that sort of thing.” 

The NatIonal Geographic special on the screen switches to an underwater shot. Sara shifts slightly in her seat, straightening out a wrinkle in the Gap hoodie she’s wearing. Nile resists the urge to sigh. Training with a six-thousand-year-old warrior tends to make you forget what it’s like dealing with kids. Copley had taken one look at the girl on the couch and made what Nile was privately starting to call his Poker Face of Retreat. 

“How are you feeling?”

A shrug. “Fine.” 

“There isn’t anything making you feel weird or uncomfortable?” Nile presses gently. 

Sara huffs. “My mom hasn’t come to pick me up yet.” 

“Your mom?”

“ _Duh._ ” Sara shifts on the couch again. “I was supposed to be at Shauna’s house, but then I woke up in that creepy friggin’ … _cage_ with some random toddlers. And I _gave_ the phone number to the cops, but no one’s actually _called_ Mom or she would be here already!”

“I’m sorry,” says Nile, her heart sinking. _Fuck_. “I’ll … I’ll have my partner out there follow up on that right away, okay?” 

“Whatever.” Sara crosses her arms and stares resolutely at the TV. “Everything is weird here anyway.”

Something about how young Sara looks, the slight sullen frown on her face, the defensive set of her arms as she slouches deeper into the couch, makes Nile back off of the future question. 2021 is clearly freaking Nicolò out on the regular - she doesn’t know if she’s prepared to open that can of worms with a traumatized teenager.

“You were saying something about where you woke up,” Nile prompts. “Do you remember anything else?”

“It was literally two days ago _._ I already talked to the other social worker about it.”

“Yeah,” Nile says, warming up to the push and pull. “But you haven’t told me yet. Maybe there’s something fresh in there.” 

“Fresh?” Sara finally turns her head, a dubious eyebrow raised. “Seriously?”

Nile gestures at herself. “What? You think I’m too old and uncool to be _fresh_?” 

The reluctant brief flash of amusement on Sara’s face has Nile’s heart lifting again. _I can still talk to normal people. I’m okay. We’re okay._

* * *

“So how was Miss Williamson?” Copley asks.

Nile shuts the car door and lets out a breath she feels like she’s been holding for hours. “Bad news, or worse news?” 

“ _Urgent_ news, if you please.”

“Alright. Urgent _and_ worst news.” Nile rubs at her temples. “Did you know most of those classic serial crime shows started getting big in the ’80s?”

“I do have a vague recollection, yes” Copley smiles faintly. “As the one between us who was _alive_ during the ’80s.” 

“And did you know that our favorite time-travelling teenager was apparently a big fan?” 

“It wouldn’t make her unusual, but no.”

“Well, it _would_ mean that she hangs onto the most random details. I asked her if she remembered who rescued her, and she gave a pretty spot-on description of Joe and Nicky. Asked me if I’d brought a sketch artist, like she was all disappointed in my professional work ethic or something. She actually said _rendition_.” 

Copley wasn’t smiling anymore. “And the bad news?”

“The bad news is that she doesn’t know much more than Nicolò. She remembers falling asleep at her friend Shauna’s house, and she thought she’d kicked her way out of the sleeping bag until she realized she was in a cage. There were” - Nile makes air quotes - “‘a couple of nerdy looking guys in doctor coats,’ but they ran away once the shooting started.” 

“Anything about a black rock?”

“She remembers it sitting in the case, but that’s it.” Nile leans her car seat back with a dispirited _thunk_. “So we have zero new intel and a whole new security risk.” 

“Speaking from experience, it’s a lot harder than you think to track someone down based only on description.” 

“I know.” Nile closes her eyes. “It just makes me jumpy.” 

“You’re right.” Copley gives her a searching look. “It would be safest for you all to get out of the area, let me handle the intelligence end.” 

“Like hell!” Nile sits back up indignantly. “It’s risky, yeah, but we still need to figure out if we can fix Nicky. And those other poor kids!”

“Andromache is mortal.” Copley’s voice is icy calm. “Mr. di Genova is … out of commission. You are down to essentially two functioning immortals, neither of whom have inside contacts in Ethan Reeve’s organization. Sometimes battles have to be fought from a distance.” 

“Tell that to Andy.” Nile sits back in her seat, feeling very much like Sara Williamson petulantly crossing her arms. Her phone is still in her pocket - she takes it out and clicks the screen on. No new messages. 

_Two functioning immortals ..._

She taps the _Emo Bro_ text thread and stares at Booker’s picture of the white fluffy dog, the cobblestones, the bistro table - France, maybe? Who knows. 

From two days ago, slightly drunk and typo-ridden and still unanswered: _u_ _going homme?_ 🙃

Her thumbs hover over the keyboard. _Nah, not Chicago. But if you’re sober, I need a favor._

She’s never asked Booker for anything before, and typing these words feels like cracking open a door she isn’t sure she wants to look through yet, much less walk into. But Copley is right: They’re short of hands, and the kind of hands they need to deal with a bizarre immortal-specific crisis like this one are very rare indeed. 

_Needs must_ , as her mom used to say. 

“Back to the safehouse?” Copley asks, starting the car. 

Nile inhales deeply. “One more errand, first. Then if you want to try to convince Andy to leave town, I won’t stop you.”

* * *

“Merciful Mother of God! _Shit!_ ” 

Nicolò usually offers more respectful prayers to the Blessed Virgin, but this isn’t the sort of situation he often finds himself in: Holding the dead body of his allegedly immortal alleged lover, who he has murdered for the fifth time in as many days. 

The strange metal object in his hand jumped with a startlingly loud _pop_ , Joe collapsed to his knees and then faceplanted on the floor, blood pooling around him like a crimson halo on the wooden planks. The back of his head has a horrifying crater, pale brain matter splattered through his soft, dark curls. Nicolò rolls him over to find only a small hole in his cheek just above his beard, his face slack and his beautiful eyes dull, lacking their vibrant spark. 

He is undeniably, panic-inducingly dead. Nicolò collapses to sit on the floor, pulling Joe’s head into his lap and trying to catch the blood gushing from his shattered skull with his fingers. Sharp edges of bone prick his skin, the blood and brainmeat hot and slick as he helplessly tries to undo this terrible mistake with his bare hands.

“Fuck me! Help!” 

No one answers. The house is silent. Not that anyone else besides Joe understands him much when he _does_ speak, anyway.

_Shit!_

Twelve hours - _twelve fucking hours_ \- that’s as far as he got past his confession to Father Yorke before stumbling into this situation again, with blood literally and figuratively on his hands. When he first saw Joe in Jerusalem, killing him had felt righteous and good. How could one not feel pride in killing an enemy soldier, in advancing a cause for God? But that was before the Christian forces got inside the city walls and Nicolò witnessed the collateral damage - intentional, calloused, ruthless slaughter of innocents by the countrymen he had called friends and brothers, on their long journey to the holy land. 

In spite of what he said to Joe a few moments ago - _The only enemy I see here is you_ \- he knows Joe isn’t an enemy anymore. Whatever else he may be, Nicolò doesn’t dwell on. But a death like this is not a righteous thing. It serves no purpose, it helps no one. 

Nicolò has fucked up _again,_ part of his never-ending fuckup parade. On accident this time, except how can he be granted absolution twice in one day for such a mortal sin, when he was so angry that he put his hands around Joe’s throat to choke him, and black spots of rage danced in his vision while they fought? 

“Joe? Joe! Come back! _Madre di Dio, per favore!”_

Minutes stretch into eternity, tears burning Nicolò’s eyes as he cradles Joe’s head and rocks him gently, as if he might coax him back to life as easily as waking a newborn baby. Eventually the jagged edges of Joe’s skull tickle his fingertips as the bone shifts, knitting back together. Nicolò’s heart thumps frantically. He’s dizzy and nauseous and spellbound by this marvel: the first time he has seen the resurrection of the dead with his own eyes. 

Joe is, undeniably, a miracle. 

His long eyelashes flutter; his chest shudders. Finally his whole body contracts, a violent burst of air rushing from his lungs. 

“God _damn!”_

Joe’s curse is as sharp and loud as the metal weapon that killed him. His gaze flicks frantically back and forth until he finds Nicolò’s face, and his pupils instantly dilate into enormous black pools. His hands shake as he seizes fistfuls of Nicolò’s shirt. Nicolò is too relieved to care that he’s still cradling the other man in his arms, head resting in the crook of his elbow, hot blood soaking his hands and trousers. 

“Joe, I am sorry! Forgive me, I did not -” he begins. 

“It happens sometimes. S’okay,” Joe interrupts. Nicolò doesn’t know the definition of this word, but he catches the meaning. Joe coughs, still fixated on Nicolò. He takes a deep breath, collecting himself, and says, “This was how it was originally, you know. This is the way I remember you and me after Jerusalem. We stumbled into the desert together and killed each other dozens of times on our way to Cairo.”

That sick remorse wells up again - that Joe thinks he would, he _could ..._ trembling, he thumbs the trail of blood off of Joe’s cheek. In trying to remove the evidence of his crime, he ends up smearing a fingerprint of crimson there, instead, _marking_ him. “I swear I would never again on purpose -”

“You most definitely did. Quite often, actually. But I started it more than half the time.” A radiant smile breaks across Joe’s face, as if this memory is endearing instead of horrific. Mirroring Nicolò’s gesture, he reaches up to swipe the wet line of tears from Nicolò’s cheek, his knuckle warm and gentle. “I was so angry. We were _both_ working through a lot of emotions.” Somehow his grin widens, his right index finger rubbing a circle on Nicolò’s bicep. 

It dawns on Nicolò that he isn’t in need of cradling or coddling anymore. He’s fully healed, perfectly fine, certainly not angry, and … enjoying himself?

“We got to Cairo and went our separate ways. A day later I found you sleeping in the street, not far from the house where I was staying. You knew no one; you had nowhere to go and no money. You were too proud to ask for help, but you didn’t want to leave the city - years later, you confessed that it was because you didn’t want to leave _me_.” He pauses, his gaze full of naked adoration; Nicolò’s heart thumps skittishly, and he has to look away before he can breathe again. “It was after dark when I stumbled across you in an alley. I was staying with a friend of my father’s, and it was late enough that the household was asleep. I practically dragged you into the kitchen - you always were a stubborn asshole. I stoked the fire and gave you food and beer. We still could hardly understand each other when we spoke, but we didn’t kill each other again, after that day.”

“I have never been to Cairo,” Nicolò mumbles, almost like an apology, and then feels very stupid for saying it. He doesn’t know how to grasp hold of this life he never lived, because it feels so heavy; he doesn’t know how to navigate these paths he never walked with Joe, because they are shrouded in darkness. 

Joe’s smile fades slightly. “I’ll take you there. We’ll go together again, if you want, like we did the first time. I’ll teach you English and whatever other languages you want to learn. Some sparring lessons would do you good, and I’ll show you how to handle a gun.” He pauses, his expression growing even more serious. “But you have to promise not to touch one again until I do.”

“Gun?”

“The thing that …” he releases his tight grip on Nicolò’s arm to wave vaguely at his own head. “Like a crossbow, but smaller and louder.”

“Gun,” Nicolò repeats.

“Yeah. No one else on Earth is a better shot than you.”

“Your blood on my hands says otherwise.” Nicolò frowns and lifts crimson evidence into Joe’s field of view, wiggling his fingers. “Before she left, Andy swore that if I hurt you, she would kill me. Now look at what I have done.” 

Joe _winks_. 

“We’d better clean up before she gets back, then. Anyway I’m _starving_ \- we’ll start on your English lessons over dinner.” He lets go of Nicolò and sits up, his face perking into its cheery expression again. “You can take the first shower.” 

Nicolò collects clean clothes and goes to the shining white closet to wash the blood from his body. As he closes the door for privacy, he sees the jovial gleam slip from Joe’s face like a mask, revealing the bereftness that lies beneath.


	27. 1099

“Who are you, exactly?” Quỳnh’s gaze, sharper than a hawk’s, pins Nicky in the darkness. Her footsteps, more silent than a fox, gave no hint of her approach. 

After a long day of riding toward Pelusium on camels - Andromache and Quỳnh sharing one, and he and Yusuf sharing the other - they have camped for the night. Nicky volunteered for the first watch, although he is obviously not the only one still awake. 

“A man from Genova who speaks Vietnamese? An invader who gazes at his enemy” - she gestures toward Yusuf’s lumpy shape, snoring by the fire - “with such unmistakable affection in his eyes? Do not think me stupid enough to overlook such things. You will tell me who you are.”

It still seems incredible to him that he can see her at all. Five hundred years of mourning - five hundred years of grief and loss, grasping frantically at the thinnest threads as the life slowly left Andy’s eyes. Five hundred years of feeling the empty place in their family like a hole in his heart. To be suddenly in Quỳnh’s constant presence, to be able to see and hear and almost, _almost_ touch her, is overwhelming. He thought he had preserved Quỳnh perfectly in his mind, but the living reality of what he lost puts all of his memories to shame.

“Yusuf asked me the same question,” Nicky replies, rubbing at a scratch in the stock of his crossbow. Andromache and Quỳnh had given them their weapons back the morning after they’d met - if simply leaving them on the sand for Yusuf and Nicky to pick up could be called a return. Yusuf had darted an incredulous look at their turned backs, but Nicky knew that Andromache and Quỳnh had little to fear from them, armed or unarmed. “I swore that I would never lie to him, so I told him the truth. He thinks I’m a madman.” 

Quỳnh snorts. “I’ve only known you a day, and I can see that you aren’t mad.”

“No, the thing is …” Setting the crossbow aside, Nicky finally turns to meet Quỳnh’s eyes. “I can understand why he thinks so. In his eyes, it has been little more than a week since we were trying to kill each other. To go from that to” - Nicky gestures vaguely between himself and Yusuf’s sleeping form - “to whatever we have now? It would be a lot to take in for anyone.” 

“It would.” Quỳnh’s eyes don’t leave his. Fuck, he has missed her. “But he seems to be coping well enough. So what did you tell him? And what happened, to make you so different from the rest of your people?”

Nicky can’t help it - he smiles. “That’s two questions, you know.”

Quỳnh gives him an exasperated glare at once so familiar and so forgotten that Nicky has to turn away before he starts crying again. “Being a little shit won’t help.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Nicky holds up his hands in mock surrender. “I just … I’m still struggling to process what happened myself. I don’t have any good answers, and the ones I do have sound insane.” 

“Who cares?” 

“What?” 

“Who cares if you sound insane?” Quỳnh grabs a saddlebag and props her bedroll on top of it, fussing the material around into a comfortable backrest. “Yusuf already believes it. Andromache and I are the only other people here, and neither of us are easily surprised. I saw you in my dreams, I watched you this past day and night. As long as you aren’t an asshole, who cares if you sound strange?”

“I ...” Nicky’s mouth opens and shuts a few times, unable to come up with a response. “I mean … I would, I suppose.” 

The laugh Quỳnh gives is almost fond. “I forget what it is like, when you are young.” 

No one has called him _young_ in centuries. Nicky turns away to wipe discreetly at his eyes. If he scooted over and just ... put his head, very gently, on Quỳnh’s shoulder right now, would she let him?

“But you still haven’t answered my question.” Quỳnh is still speaking. “Honesty and answers aren’t the same thing. Who are you, really?” 

Nicky lies back against his own saddlebag, looking up at the stars. “I wasn’t lying to you earlier, when I said I was from Genova. My family really is there. Two brothers, my sister-in-law, my family’s estate - or what’s left of it. If we were to sail to Genova right now, I’m sure we would find them all still there.” 

“That doesn’t explain how you can speak Vietnamese.” 

Nicky swallows. “What would you say if I told you that you were the one who taught me?”

The sound of scuffling as Quỳnh sits suddenly upright. “What?” 

“What would you say,” Nicky says carefully, “if I told you that _you_ were the one who taught me Vietnamese?” 

Quỳnh stares. “I would say that you and I have never met before in our lives.” 

“What would you say,” Nicky says, barrelling desperately onwards. _Joe, my heart, I wish I had half your gift with words._ “If I told you that in another life, we had already met?”

“Another life?”

“And in that other life, I lived a thousand years, and fought countless battles with you and Yusuf and Andromache, only to be snatched out of that other life and placed back in Jerusalem a week ago?” 

A long, hesitant pause. “Is this one of those vision-prophecies that were so popular with the Christians a little while back?” 

Nicky lets out a bark of surprised laughter, the tension broken. “Not at all.”

“Because I haven’t been inside one of the Latin churches for at least fifty years, but it sounds _very_ like something one of your holy men might say in a fugue.”

“It isn’t a vision,” Nicky repeats, as much to himself as to Quỳnh. “And it wasn’t a dream.”

“So you said.” Quỳnh falls silent, worrying at her bottom lip as she looks at him. 

Nicky can’t resist needling a little. “You’re regretting your words about my sanity, aren’t you?” 

“Maybe.” Her eyes don’t leave his face. “You said it yourself - it’s a hard story to believe.”

He spreads his hands helplessly. “I don’t have any other.” 

“Hard to believe,” Quỳnh says slowly, “but perhaps … convenient.”

It is Nicky’s turn to sit bolt upright. “ _Convenient?_ ” 

“Nicky.” Quỳnh’s voice is a velvet glove on a mailed fist. “I saw the city burning. I saw the defenses come down. I saw you, with your sword and your crossbow and an army of your people behind you. And I know” - she says, holding up a hand - “I know that you didn’t partake in what came after. But you can’t outrun your guilt by getting lost in a future you’ve created in your mind. Believe me when I say this: The burdens in your heart don’t disappear. You can only live with them, until they become lighter.” 

For the second time that night, Nicky is speechless. A wild indignation flares in his chest - _pretending?_ Pretending to be someone he has sweated and bled and wept to become? Pretending a millennia of the most pure and amazing love that he has ever known? Pretending, for the sake of denying one of his darkest sins and greatest failures? For a few seconds as he struggles to control himself, Nicky feels as young as Quỳnh believes him to be. 

_She doesn’t know you yet,_ he repeats to himself. _From her point of view, it makes perfect sense_.

“I’d like to think,” Nicky says, careful to moderate his voice, “that whatever my faults may be as a man, false innocence is not one of them. I will live under the shadow of Jerusalem the rest of my life, and if I have to spend the next thousand years atoning, I will. I won’t hide from that. But that doesn’t change what else I know. I have nine hundred years of life in my memories - memories of Yusuf, of Andromache, of _you_. We were family. And in one of those memories,” Nicky finishes doggedly, bringing his knees up to wrap his arms around them, “you taught me Vietnamese.”

The silence between them stretches longer this time, so long that Nicky almost checks to see if Quỳnh has fallen asleep. 

“I still don’t know who you are.” Quỳnh says doubtfully. “And I am absolutely sure I didn’t teach you Vietnamese. But I believe,” she says, with an air of reluctant finality, “that _you_ believe you are telling the truth, and I suppose for now that is enough to get by.” 

Nicky sighs in relief, a tension he didn’t realize he had been holding lifting off of his shoulders. “If it makes things any easier, Yusuf told me he thought I’d been hit in the head.” 

“That would make sense,” Quỳnh says dryly. “You know, Andromache once saw a man get knocked down by a ceiling beam. He woke up speaking a completely different dialect.”

“I have certainly gotten hit on the head enough times for that,” Nicky acknowledges. 

“But you say you have memories.” Quỳnh nods at Andromache and Yusuf sleeping by the fire. “Memories of the four of us, together. How did you say this happened, again?”

“That’s the problem,” Nicky says, frustration creeping into his voice. “I have no idea. Yusuf and I were trying to save some children from a” - he stumbles on the word _lab_ \- “from an evil man. We freed the children, and stole this strange black rock from his safehouse, and then I fell asleep next to Yusuf and woke up in Jerusalem. I have been trying to figure it out ever since.” 

“Did you say a black rock?” Quỳnh frowns. “Huh.” 

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” Quỳnh shakes her head. “Just a fleeting thought. I’m sure it will come back to me later. But you said you fell asleep next to Yusuf?” 

“He and I have gone to sleep together almost every night for nine hundred and twenty years.” Nicky’s eyes flick in Andromache’s direction. “You understand how that is.”

Quỳnh does not take the bait and follow his gaze; she fixates on him instead, a line forming between her eyebrows as she concentrates like a scholar trying to translate a particularly vexing piece of text. “Yet _he_ does not seem to understand how that is.”

“Not yet.” A sigh, softer than the still night air. “But we have time. Not forever, but some time.” 

“What makes you think your new immortality is not forever?” she whispers sharply.

Nicky shrugs and lays out another card. “Because you taught me many things: Vietnamese, how to be a true marksman,” he pats the crossbow next to his hip, “and about Lykon, even though he was dead long before I was born.” 

_Because I have seen Andromache become mortal with my own eyes; I watched her almost bleed to death on a gurney in a madman’s medical lab_ , he doesn’t say. There will be a time and a place to say such things, but it is not now.

“Fuck me,” Quỳnh mutters, eyes going wide. 

Maybe he shouldn’t get so much satisfaction from her shock, but _Santa Maria_ \- what a _relief_ it would be if someone actually believed him for once! What if he didn’t have to bear the truth of this strange, weighty existence alone? Tipping his head to the side, he cocks an eyebrow. “I told you, I have no prophetic visions, just memories of things I have seen and heard in my past.”

“Hmm.” Her lips press tightly together, and she looks at Andromache’s sleeping form, as if contemplating whether to summon her into this conversation. Nicky doesn’t want that; he’s missed Quỳnh so deeply, the time alone with her is like … well, it’s like water in a desert. He’s feeling selfish and wants to soak her in for a while longer.

“Ask me anything,” he says quickly, a diversion.

“Anything?”

He lifts his hands, palms open. “Anything.”

“What do I have for lunch tomorrow?”

“Dates and dried goat. But I only know that because I’ve seen the supplies in your saddlebag.” He stretches his legs out straight, flexing his feet in his stiff boots. They’re too small, stolen off the feet of a dead soldier, and he wonders if they might have enough money to buy a new pair in Pelusium. “I said _anything_ , Quỳnh. You can do better than questions about goat meat.”

“You _are_ a little shit.”

“You have figured me out. But please don’t tell Yusuf, let it be our secret.” He winks, and a wry smile flickers over her face. Nicky’s heart soars. 

“Fine. You said last night that we’re your family. Is that true, in the years to come? Are there any more of us?”

“Yes, we are family,” Nicky replies. “There are two more, Sébastien and Nile, but they will not be born for hundreds of years. Until then, it is the four of us. Life is difficult, sometimes, but by and large we are happy.” 

“Happy.” Her eyes sparkle in the dying firelight, amusement playing at her lips. “And are we all together?”

Quỳnh is lionhearted - in battle, in her passion for Andromache, in her zeal for life and all its experiences. But over time, Nicky has come to realize that some portion of that lion heart is driven by fear of losing everyone else, like she lost Lykon. Tonight, he won’t speak of the witch trials in England, or Booker’s betrayal, or Andromache’s gunshot wound in Merrick’s lab, because he can stop those things from happening. He doesn’t need to warn Quỳnh yet; he would rather see her smile again. 

“Yes. We are together.” 

“I think I’ll believe you, Nicky di Genova.” She wiggles against her makeshift support, settling in, and the saddlebag making soft noises as its contents shift. “Tell me then, what happens when we get to Yusuf’s home, and you meet his family? Does he throw himself into your arms and declare that he returns your affection? Do we celebrate at your wedding?”

“We pledge ourselves to each other a few decades from now on a snowy night in Kyiv, with you and Andromache as witnesses,” Nicky sighs. “But I do not know what will happen in Mahdia. This journey is different than my memories of our first meeting.”

“Ah, so you do _not_ know everything,” Quỳnh says. 

“Only God knows everything. But I have faith, and that is enough for today and tomorrow.”

* * *

When Nicky wakes just before dawn, he discovers Andromache and Quỳnh sharing a bedroll on the ground nearby, both fast asleep. 

Yusuf is alone on watch. At first Nicky thinks he’s praying, but then realizes he isn’t kneeling. He’s squatting, using his knife to trace elaborate geometric patterns in the sand. Nicky sits up, squinting in the gathering light. Yusuf glances at him and goes back to his work; he doesn’t even stop when Nicky comes to squat beside him. 

“Beautiful,” Nicky says. “It reminds me of the mihrab design in the mosque at Mahdia.”

“Does it?” Radiant, unexpected pleasure dawns on his face. Nicky’s stomach feels like a family of mice are dancing inside of it, because he managed to say the _exact_ right thing at the right moment. Yusuf doesn’t even express disbelief that Nicky would know what the tilework inside his hometown mosque looks like, and Nicky decides to take it as a positive sign. Yusuf continues, “I’ve been trying to remember the exact motif. It has been some time since I worshiped there.”

“You have captured it,” Nicky replies, restraining the deep-seated impulse to stroke his back encouragingly, or to fiddle with the curls at the nape of his neck. He crosses his arms, pinning his hands. “You have true talent.”

His delight shifts into a smirk. “And you are about to tell me that I am a famous artist in the future?” 

“The greatest artist I have ever known.” 

“Such flattery.” 

“I always tell you the truth, remember?” 

“The truth means nothing from a biased man, Nicky,” he retorts, but his eyes are full of humor and his cheeks are undeniably flushed. “Anyway, I am not susceptible to flattery.”

In fact, flattery will get Nicky everywhere with Joe. After spending decades and then centuries together, the flattery has become dance between them, an intricate series of rituals that forms a language of its own. But in these early days, Joe still hasn’t grown out of his youthful pride. The first time around, as soon they scraped together enough Greek and sabir between them to communicate properly, Nicolò discovered that Yusuf responded to compliments like a preening flamingo. Even then, Nicolò never had to lie to elicit that preening response. Yusuf has always been the cleverest, most passionate, most handsome, and most talented man on Earth. Why would Nicky hesitate to tell him such truths, every day? 

“Biased? Me?” Nicky tuts. “I’ll have you know that -”

“By god’s big swinging balls, will you two _shut the fuck up_ until sunrise?” Andromache growls from her side of the dead campfire. Quỳnh, curled around her back, mumbles into her shoulder. 

Yusuf’s face falls, his lips twisting into a pout. “I was going to ask her to trade places today, so I do not have to share a camel with you again,” he whispers, not very softly. “But now I think she will say no.”

Andromache does, indeed, say no, and Nicky spends another day atop a camel with Yusuf. The other man insists on controlling the animal, which is perfectly fine. He gets to sit behind, thighs clenched to Yusuf’s hips to brace against the camel’s rolling gait, arms around Yusuf’s waist so he doesn’t slide off the back. When the wind kicks up, whipping Yusuf’s curls into his face, he mutters about how Yusuf needs a haircut and takes refuge by resting his forehead against Yusuf’s neck. Maybe they will never reach Mahdia; maybe he can simply rest here, clinging to Yusuf’s back, forever. 

The last few days of their journey pass quickly. They are only just getting to know each other, and yet the rhythm of this travel - the four of them sitting around campfires at night, talking during the hours at watch, laughing and teasing each other on the road - Nicky finds it natural and easy to settle into. 

This arrangement is a familiar vintage, one he has fond memories of and doesn’t mind tasting again. 

Things are not perfect, though. Not by any means. He misses Booker and Nile; he can feel their ghosts flitting in the empty spaces between the four of them. And watching the easy familiarity between Quỳnh and Andromache, their way of exchanging a whole conversation into a single glance, their in-jokes born of an infinite number of shared experiences, sends his heart aching for the older version of Joe he left in bed in San Francisco. He aches for all the memories to come, the experiences they will share, the in-jokes they will develop - an ache for the man who is still _becoming_ , but who is not quite here yet. 

Even with these touches of sadness to his days, Nicky’s soul is content, by and large. 

His soul is content, that is, until they reach Pelusium.


	28. 1099

Yusuf didn’t think it was possible for his life to get even _more_ surreal, and yet here he is. 

In front of him, swaying slightly with the rhythm of the camel’s gait, are the two women from his dreams, simultaneously more and less real in their startling presence than his mind had ever painted them. Both of them are healing the same way Yusuf and Nicky are. Quỳnh and Andromache had each nicked a palm by the light of the fire a night ago, and Yusuf had watched with his own eyes as the small cuts healed over into unmarked skin. When he had looked up again, Nicky’s eyes were laughing silently. The words hung in the air as clearly as if Nicky had spoken them.

_Do you believe me now?_

To his great reluctance, irritation, and continued discomfort, Yusuf thinks he might.

Andromache and Quỳnh are like no other people Yusuf has ever met. If Nicky was unsettling, with his pale eyes and his incomprehensible stories, the two women are warriors from another world - calm, confident, and completely and utterly unruffled by such trivial things as the existential anxieties of a merchant’s son. Confronted with Andromache laughing at Quỳnh’s _two-hundred-year-old story_ , with their unmistakable immortality and their near-instant acceptance of Nicky’s oddities, it was hard for Yusuf to maintain his stubborn skepticism. _There are others_ , shouted a voice in his head with glee. _There are others like us. It isn’t just you and that fucking Frank. There are others. They are happy._

Things that had seemed overwhelming only a day or so ago are suddenly minor now. Where two ragged, blood-stained men would have to skulk by twilight, the four of them can ride openly. Where before there had been constant thirst and foraging, now there is a decent meal and a warm fire each night, with four sentries to take watch instead of two. Quỳnh and Andromache move with a fearless grace that supports their claim of _centuries_ spent traveling with each other. Not to mention the relief of having other targets around for Nicky’s fervent attention.

 _Nicky_. 

Yusuf had never given much thought to what Nicky would be like if he could spend time mooning over someone who _wasn’t_ Yusuf. Apparently, the answer to that question is that Nicky is someone other people could actually like. Quỳnh, at least, seems to have welcomed him with open arms. Yusuf has woken up for his watch nearly every night to find them murmuring together like a pair of old friends. Andromache seems to address him with less curt instruction in her voice than she uses with Yusuf. In the company of the literal women of his dreams, Nicky’s strangeness is less of a weight. Around the fire, the three of them often seem bound up in some unspoken accord that Yusuf cannot seem to join. 

Yusuf has decided to call the mix of feelings in his chest relief. Nicky has found his own people. The sooner Yusuf can find a way to leave all three of them to it and get home again, the better. It is good not to be so fervently _needed_ , not to have the weight of that obsessive devotion on his shoulders. He is relieved. 

He truly is.

They manage to dismount and lead the camels through the gates of Pelusium without incident. Travelling with Andromache and Quỳnh carries the added benefit of making their little party fairly unremarkable. In addition to better clothes and better mounts, both of the women seem to possess a peculiar gift for belonging anywhere. 

“I haven’t been here in years, but I don’t remember the town being this busy,” Andromache remarks as traffic inches forward through the street. The main thoroughfare they’re walking on doesn’t seem to be part of any main market, but even to a stranger’s eye there is an unusual amount of bustle.

“Pelusium has been falling out of fashion as a port for some time,” says Yusuf. “Whatever everyone is so stirred up about, it isn’t normal trade.”

“It’s the army.” Nicky’s voice holds an underlying tension. “The vizier in Cairo is sending a relief force to retake al-Quds - Jerusalem. An army marches on its belly - if I were a commander, I would take every opportunity I could to resupply on the way. I’m sure there is a cavalry column somewhere near one of the other walls.” 

“Damn.” Quỳnh squints over the sea of bobbing heads as though she might be able to see the approaching ranks from here. “Every merchant in town is going to be raising prices as high as they can get away with. Do you think they’ll actually enter the gates? 

“I doubt it,” says Andromache. “If _I_ had a holy city that had just been taken by invaders, I wouldn’t wait around in my own port for them to get comfortable before I attacked.” 

“Nicky?” Quỳnh turns, giving him a meaningful glance.

Nicky shakes his head. “Andromache would know better than I would.” 

“It doesn’t matter. None of us are moving towards that fight in any case,” Andromache says, turning to look sternly at Nicky as if to make sure he won’t throw himself in the path of the Fatimid army. “There will be ships sailing to Mahdia from here no matter where the column goes.”

Here is his chance. Yusuf clears his throat. “Everyone who doesn’t want to be on the eastern coast right now is going to be trying to take a ship bound westward. Booking passage for four on short notice will be difficult.” 

“There’s no hurry,” Quỳnh replies, puzzled. “The army will pass soon enough, and no one will pay us any mind here.” 

Andromache makes a noise of assent as she pauses to let a wagon train pass them by. “I’d rather not get fleeced by some captain looking to make a profit off the rush.” 

A sudden flash of inspiration comes to Yusuf. “It’s not us three that need to hurry,” he says, “it’s Nicky. In al-Arish, the news of the siege had arrived ahead of us. None of the townspeople were eager to see a Frank within their walls. If we stay too long in Pelusium …”

“But I was only kidnapped in al-Arish because they wanted to ransom me,” Nicky interrupts. “No one has looked at me twice here, and I can keep my face covered.” 

“Ransom?” Quỳnh grins. “Was _that_ what you two were doing?”

“A plan I thought would keep us safe.” Yusuf hurriedly moves on, reluctant to hear anyone laugh at his failed idea. “We are much closer to Cairo here, only a few days’ hard ride with a change of horses. If the army is already out, the vizier may be on high alert for infiltrating enemies.” 

Andromache snorts. “Pelusium may be out of fashion, but it isn’t al-Arish. Unless Nicky starts waving his sword around in the middle of the market, I don’t think anyone will notice one Frank quietly passing through.”

Yusuf bites down on the familiar irritation rising in his head. “Still, I think it would be safest if we split up. I have the most connections in these ports, I can go on ahead to Mahdia.” 

“This again!” Quỳnh sounds exasperated. “Still trying to leave us, Yusuf? Have we not travelled well together, these past few days?”

“We decided on the road that we shouldn’t split up.” Nicky’s voice is firm. “There is no good reason, not when we could all sail to Mahdia together.” 

“Why is everyone so obsessed with following me around?” Yusuf throws his hands up. “My family is going to have questions about who you are, and how we met. And so far, none of us are going to have good answers. If we have so much time, what’s wrong with me taking a bit to prepare?”

“Because you aren’t preparing,” says Andromache sternly. “You’re running away. Going home to your family and pretending that we don’t exist, that your immortality doesn’t exist, will bring you nothing but grief.”

“I’m not denying what has happened to me,” argues Yusuf. “I’m not saying this is forever. I’m saying that unless you want my family asking questions none of you sound prepared to answer, it’s best that I arrive alone. 

“Why wouldn’t it be just as easy for us to help you think of something on the way?” Quỳnh asks. “No one is saying we have to barge into your home all at once, just that we shouldn’t scatter to the four winds.”

“I don’t recall being _consulted_ on any of these decisions,” says Yusuf angrily. “You all just decided you were going to follow me home, for reasons that are still not all that fucking clear to me. Why shouldn’t I just walk down to the port by myself right now?” 

At Yusuf’s words, _I don’t recall being consulted_ , Nicky’s gaze guiltily darts in Quỳnh’s direction. Andromache opens her mouth, but Quỳnh - with an eye on Nicky - rests a hand on her forearm to keep her quiet. 

Under the sound of the street bustling and vibrating around them, he murmurs contritely, “You are right, Yusuf. I haven’t consulted you properly. If you choose to return to Mahdia alone, then I’ll accompany Andromache and Quỳnh to Cairo. And as you suggested, we can meet up later - a month, or a year, or whenever you are ready.” He takes a deep breath, his broad shoulders hunched as if bracing for a physical blow. “If that’s what you wish.” 

The concession is so unexpected, so _welcome_ , it sends a hot burst of relief through Yusuf’s chest. He suddenly feels like a cork that has popped to the water’s surface, finally exposed to the air for the first time in ages. Quỳnh looks … satisfied? _Proud?_ Is this what she and Nicky have been talking about, with their heads stuck together so often? Is she responsible for this new perspective from Nicky?

He’d kiss her in gratitude, if Andromache wouldn’t murder him for it. 

“Excellent! I wish you luck in Cairo, then,” he blurts out, before anyone can change their mind, and he sticks out a hand. Nicky, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise, seizes his forearm in a reflexively polite gesture. His grip is warm and strong, but not clinging; he lets go before Yusuf does. “My business will likely bring me to Cairo next spring. I will look for you then, if I come. Goodbye, and safe journey.” 

He’s walking before he finishes talking, striding impulsively down the nearest street, away from the other three immortals. He doesn’t let himself linger on the sound of Nicky’s startled, strangled goodbye in the burble of traffic. He doesn’t even know how to get to the quay; he simply needs distance, his body tingling with relief and … something else. A dozen steps later, he realizes that _something else_ is an echo inside of his chest, as if part of him has suddenly turned hollow. How can he feel relieved and bereft at the same time? _What the fuck does that even mean?_

“Yusuf? Yusuf!” Long before he can sort out his emotions, Andromache comes jogging up behind him. “Hey, genius!”

“What?” he snaps out, swiveling on one heel to face her. She’s almost of a height to meet his gaze without looking up, but somehow she seems taller. 

“You left your saddlebags,” she says, eyes crinkling in amusement. She lifts the bag toward him, the decorative metal accents jingling like laughter. “How do you plan to book passage?”

Yusuf takes it and doesn’t reply, trying not to look surly. At least half of the money and supplies inside belong to Nicky, but the bag is heavy - he left everything for Yusuf. Which was quite selfish of him, probably - did he do it to make him feel guilty? 

_Of course not. You know him better than that,_ a voice whispers in the back of his skull. He stomps on it mercilessly until it shuts up.

“You ran away faster than a rabbit running from a wolf,” Andromache continues lightly. “Quỳnh and Nicky are going to find lodgings, and I’m going to see about passage to Cairo. We might as well walk together for a while longer, to the quay, before we are parted.”

Yusuf lifts an eyebrow. “I will not change my mind.”

“I’m not here to talk you out of anything. But you’re walking the wrong way, toward the amphitheater, and I thought I’d save you the trouble of wandering for hours,” Andromache replies, slipping an arm through his elbow and tugging him down the nearest cross-street. “You’ve bragged of your bartering prowess, Yusuf son of Ibrahim the merchant, and I am eager to see your skills put to use. Perhaps you can find me a bargain also, when I book passage for the rest of us.” 

And so Yusuf is alone with Andromache for the first time. She is … well, _intimidating_ is the only word that fits, even as she grins and chats with him through the streets of Pelusium. He has never known another human so at ease with themself, so comfortable and confident in every movement and gesture. She speaks to the sailors at the quay in a half dozen different languages, switching between tongues as easily as another woman might change the scarf on her head.

On the second ship, they fall into a little charade, each pretending to be different people - first the haughty noblewoman and her local guide; then on the next ship, the valiant Fatimid-allied soldier and his Varangian warrior companion. Andromache is quick and intelligent, the rapport between them is easy, and it’s unexpectedly _fun_. Her confidence is contagious, and he finds himself rising to the challenges she subtly puts in front of him. For a while Yusuf forgets everything else and simply loses himself in this enjoyable play-acting. He strikes very good bargains for himself back to Mahdia and for the others to Cairo, which earns a look of respect from Andromache that makes him puff his chest as they leave the quay. 

Yusuf has just enough coin to book passage west, but his ship doesn’t sail for another two days. 

“That’s settled, then,” Andromache says cheerfully, taking his arm again. “I’m sure Quỳnh has found excellent lodgings for us - she’s quite particular and has an eye for quality. Plus, you need new clothes so you don’t reach home looking like a lunatic. Come along, you must at least give the three of us a proper goodbye before you leave the day after tomorrow.” 

Yusuf opens his mouth and then closes it again, because what else can he do? Sleep on the street? All of his money is promised for passage on the ship, and she’s right: He can’t show up at home dressed like a tattered, blood-stained corpse. His mother would die on the spot of shock and shame. 

As he walks arm-in-arm with Andromache through Pelusium’s streets, back to Nicky and Quỳnh, that hollow space Yusuf noticed before begins to tickle, as if a cloud of moths has taken flight inside his chest.


	29. 2021

“Andy, what are you doing?”

Nile stands in the doorway to the dark kitchen, the only illumination coming from Andy’s laptop screen. The other woman sits at the table, one hand on the keyboard and the other on the black rock, resting in its cracked case. 

Andy doesn’t turn around, much less flinch. She probably heard Nile coming from all the way upstairs. Nile walks into the room gingerly, because she’s sitting dangerously still, like she’s coiled and waiting for something. When Nile gets close enough, she notices at least three dozen tabs open on the internet browser, the top one a wikipedia page for “Einstein-Rosen bridge.” 

When she and Copley came back to the safehouse after the interview with Sara Williamson, they found Nicolò and Joe eating dinner over an English lesson. Andy was gone - to the lab, Joe told her. Eventually Copley returned to his hotel and Nicolò and Joe went upstairs. 

Joe is currently sleeping in the hallway outside his bedroom. 

(“I’m giving Nicolò space,” he explained. Nile replied, “It’s only fifteen feet to the bed on the other side of the door. That’s not much space.” Joe shrugged and stole all the pillows from Nile’s room before making a nest and settling down.)

Andy didn’t come home before Nile went to sleep, and now it’s three in the morning. Still wary, she tucks a stray braid into her bonnet and takes a chair. Only Andy’s eyes move, to look at her. 

“Hey, talk to me. Are you ok?”

Andy swallows. “That shit you said, about time travel. Do you suppose it works in both directions?”

“What do you mean?” Nile puts an elbow on the table, leaning her cheek onto her hand. She wants to ask her to stop touching that black rock, but Andy doesn’t seem in the mood to listen to requests.

“If it could pull Nicolò here, into the future, do you think it could push someone backward?”

Nile stares at her for a long moment. “Why would you ask that? Did you find something at the lab?” Andy’s knuckles go white as she grips the rock. “Push who backward? Do you mean Nicky?” Silence. Then it dawns on her: “Oh, hell no, Andy. You’re not thinking about Quỳnh, are you? About doing something stupid, on the off chance that time travel is an actual thing and you might … what? Travel back to before she was … she was …” Nile trails off; the look on Andy’s face is all the answer she needs. “Is this because Nicolò mentioned his dreams of her? Is that why you’re like this?”

It’s been a while since that Goussainville safehouse and Nile’s first dreams of Quỳnh, but during the intervening months she’s learned not to discuss them with Andy. They still wake her up some nights - periodic, unpredictable, and terrifying. The dreams had been so distinct at first; hyperreal in their vivid clarity and overwhelming emotion. As Nile’s life started getting weirder and she started having less “normal” dreams, the lines seemed to blur. Dreams of Quỳnh screaming in her iron coffin blended into dreams of her mom and little brother, which blended into dreams of Booker, which blended into dreams about drowning in the middle of the desert while Dizzy and Jay look dispassionately on. 

“I remember when they first started sending people to the very bottom of the ocean.” Andy doesn’t look away from the screen. “Joe and Nicky were so excited about it, although they tried not to show it around me. They thought it might lead us to Quỳnh. Turns out the only thing the deep-sea subs were good for was showing us how impossible it would be to ever find her again.” 

“Andy.”

“We were together for thousands of years.” Andy’s voice was a distant whisper. “Just her and me.”

“Andy, listen, we don’t even -”

“We looked for her for decades. For longer than you’ve been alive right now. I kept thinking that if I just” - a huff of mirthless laughter - “that if I just spent enough time looking … then I would _have_ to find her, in the end. What else could be the point of having all those years to live?” 

Nile opens her mouth helplessly, then closes it again. 

“I don’t want any more hope.” Andy’s hand clenches convulsively. “But there aren’t any more centuries left. I can’t go out knowing … knowing there was one more thing I could have tried.

The kitchen chair squeaks slightly as Nile shifts in her seat. Real wood, thinks Nile distantly. Real, heavy wood, nicely stained, for a matching chair and table set. All of the safehouses she’s seen have been a mix of random tactical junk jumbled in with priceless antique heirlooms. _When you know you need something_ , Joe had told her once, _it’s always better to pick the one that will last._ _Your future self will thank you._

“What did you find in the lab?” 

“Just bits and pieces. Computer screens, overheard conversations. And this.” Andy lets go of the rock and slides a small object over the table.

“A notebook?” Nile picks the moleskine up and starts flipping through the palm-sized pages, squinting at the messy handwriting and the frequent acronyms. “Isn’t somebody going to be missing this? Some detective, maybe? Who will be _real_ motivated to find the person who stole their notes?”

“Maybe. I picked her pocket when she walked through a blind spot; she didn’t get a good look at my face.” Andy crosses her arms and leans back in the chair, frowning. “A phone or a computer would have been better, but they would have been able to track us. And we don’t have the same tech support anymore.”

“Sounds to me like you could have used some backup on this amazing solo mission of yours.” Nile ignores the guilty kick of her conscience and turns to the last few pages with writing on them. The last page seemed to be a list of random follow-up items. Whoever the writer was, their handwriting had gotten worse and worse as the list went on.

  * _call gruer WC → accounting_


  * _equip where_


  * _religious? new age market? social media → CALL PEN B4 THURS._


  * _weapons $$$$$ contract chemical weapons? cage???_


  * _energy_


  * _cipher → Gab + Agab = kTab?_


  * _Einstein rosesn(?)_


  * _SCI FI SHIT???_



“I didn’t get everything that they were talking about.” Andy ignores Nile’s half-hearted dig. None of them have managed to get Andy to stop taking risks, even with her new mortality. “But it sure sounded to me like you were right. That this _time travel_ thing - that it’s real. And that maybe it could work both ways. You don’t call something a bridge unless people can go back and forth.”

“Andy. Even if we … even if we _could_ send someone back - that’s a big ‘if,’ considering we still have no idea how any of this shit is even happening. Even if we _could_ send someone back … you know that’s just asking for a whole world of hurt, right?” Nile wraps her arms around herself, feeling suddenly cold. “I mean, messing with the past triggers the apocalypse in like, every other movie. It’s time travel 101.” 

Andy huffs. “All our memories seem to be doing just fine.”

“So far!”

“Nicolò doesn’t seem to be having any problems.”

“Have you seen his ass lately?!” Nile jumps at a muted sound from upstairs, and hastily lowers her voice. “Nicky is not okay! _Joe_ is not okay! In fact, he’s pretty fucked up about all of this, in case you haven’t noticed. The last thing we need is to try and throw _more_ fucked-up shit on top of the pile! We need to figure out what we’re dealing with before we even think about … trying to work the other way.”

Andy snorts. “You sound like Copley.”

Nile scowls. “Sometimes the guy has a point.” 

“What happened to speaking for yourself? What happened to jumping out of penthouse windows? There’s a chance here to … to make something right. All of us have been in tighter spots before, and we never let that stand in our way.”

“So that makes it okay to just _leave us behind_?”

The minute the words leave her mouth Nile immediately wants to bite her tongue. Andy’s eyes snap to hers. The words hang in the air, short and sharp and terrifying - a chasm that Nile hadn’t seen yawning open under her feet. 

“This isn’t about me choosing between you and Quỳnh, Nile,” Andy says in a measured voice.

Nile swallows. “Yeah.”

Andy’s eyes are shards of ice. “I stopped looking for her because I almost lost Joe and Nicky, too.”

“I know.” 

“I knew that she was down there, drowning. Every moment of every day.” 

There are tears prickling at the corners of Nile’s eyes. “I _know_ , Andy.”

“I gave her up.” There is the faintest tremble in Andy’s voice. It might as well have been an earthquake. “I loved her more than anything. I promised her that it would always be us, just her and me. And I still gave her up, because I couldn’t stand to lose any more of my family.”

There are times when Nile feels like she is finally adjusting to the scope of her life; when Andy and Joe and Nicky fold her easily into their rhythm of living and bickering and loving. And then there are moments when she is sitting in a dark kitchen at 3 a.m., listening to a tragedy that began centuries before she was born. What the hell is she supposed to say, in the face of so much love? What _can_ she say, in the face of so much grief? 

_It’s not what time steals. It’s what it leaves behind._

“I’m not … I’m not _asking_ you to do anything, Andy,” Nile says miserably. “I’m not even saying there’s a decision to make. I’m saying that we _aren’t there yet_. Hell,” Nile closes the notebook and tosses it back onto the table, “we haven’t gone through all of these crazy doodles, or talked to Reeve. We’re not giving up, but we can’t cross the bridge if we don’t even know where it’s built. Right?”

Andy’s lips twitch into the faintest fond smile. “Sure, kid.”

“I’m not a damn kid,” Nile says reflexively, familiar irritation steering her away from the cliff’s edge, with some relief. “I’m the one who had this genius idea, remember?”

“You’re right.” With a decisive movement, Andy shuts the laptop and stands up. Her face has fallen into its usual impassive lines, except for the slight redness at her eyes. “It won’t do me any good going around in circles.” 

She turns and heads down the hall to the bedroom, the door closing softly behind her. Nile stares into the dark hallway, heart sinking. The words hadn’t been said, but she heard them anyway.

 _It’s better not to hope when it can only hurt you_.

She doesn’t want to think about the fact that Andy hadn’t actually agreed to stop. She doesn’t want to think about _choice_ . About Quỳnh. About the cruelty of forcing Andy to that crossroads one more time. About the horrible, creeping feeling that if it _were_ to come down to a choice between what Andy has now and the woman she loved for a thousand years … Andy’s choice is already made. 

And a tiny part of Nile isn’t sure what that choice would be.

* * *

Nicolò wakes up alone in the top-floor bedroom of this strange house, in this strange city and this strange century, with these strange people. He stares at the cracks in the plaster ceiling, his gaze tracing the lightning-bolt pattern, and he reminds himself to breathe. Morning light creeps slowly through the broken window, cold and stark. 

Last night, after Joe taught him a handful of English phrases and then left him alone, he cried himself to sleep. For the first time since Jerusalem, he cried for his mother and brothers and Agnesia, who are all dead. He cried for his friends who are now nine hundred years in the grave; for the life he will never see again; and for the Genova he left behind that must be an entirely different city now, if it even exists at all. 

He left home knowing that he might never return, expecting to die in God’s service. This bizarre one-way trip he’s ended up on … it’s a whole other situation, one he wasn’t remotely prepared for. 

Before Joe agreed to teach him English, it was easy to avoid thinking about the things he has lost. He was focused on his feelings about Jerusalem, on this incomprehensible current predicament, on being treated like a prisoner, on his confusion and anger. Accepting English lessons was an admission that this place - this _circumstance_ \- is real. Everything he knew in his life up to this point is truly gone. 

This isn’t a nightmare he’ll wake up from. It’s a _new_ life he has to come to terms with. 

After a soul-wringing cry and a hard sleep, he feels hollowed out. In the pale light of dawn he pulls on clothes from the strange bag that is supposedly his own, and he takes his time with prayers for _lauds_ , and finally he opens the bedroom door to find Joe sleeping in the corridor. There are so many other bedrooms, and yet he curled up here. His face is soft in sleep, his hair standing at wild angles from what must have been a restless night. He’s undeniably handsome, with his charmingly unkempt curls and his parted lips, blankets bundled in his arms as if he’s clutching another person. 

_Me. Two days ago, that was me._

Nicolò still can’t begin to process that memory - the safe, cozy sensation of being held by _this man_ , of all people. It’s even more impossible to grapple with the realization that no, Joe’s claims aren’t an elaborate cruel prank by a godforsaken heathen, and yes, somehow he has lost nine centuries of being openly married to a _man_ \- one who adores him, for some incomprehensible reason. 

These contradictions jar so harshly against his grief over the things he has lost, he simply shoves the whole mess into a corner of his mind and decides to deal with it later.

Leaving Joe to sleep, he silently pads down the stairs to find Nile at the kitchen table. She has that strange glowing book open in front of her, and she starts at his appearance. She looks exhausted, as if she hasn’t slept, and she speaks English phrases he hasn’t learned yet.

“Hello, Nile,” he says, knowing full well he’s butchering the English pronunciation but leaping in headfirst anyway. “Well morning.”

Her smile is brilliant and proud. “Good morning,” she chirps in reply. He echoes her words, correcting himself, trying to mimic her accent. Before he has time to think, she snaps the glowing book closed and sits him down to fix his disheveled braids, her fingers warm and soothing on his scalp. It feels nice, in a very different way than when Joe styled his hair yesterday, but still nice. 

It occurs to him for the first time that he knows Joe is nine hundred years old, and Andy is so unfathomable she must be as ancient as Christ himself, but Nile gives off the fraternal energy of someone … newer. Someone like _him_. 

“Nile?”

Her fingers pause in his hair. “Mmm?”

“How old are you?” he asks in Ligurian, turning sideways in the chair to face her. She lifts an elegant eyebrow, head cocked as she strains to catch the meaning of his words. He points at himself, then flashes his ten fingers, three times. “I am thirty.” He points at her. “And you?”

“Oh!” She points at herself, and then speaks English he doesn’t understand as she flashes her fingers in return: twenty-six. 

Not nine hundred, and not even ninety! In excitement, he gestures between the two of them and says, “The same!” 

She laughs, obviously charmed by his animated response, and forces him back around by his shoulders so she can finish his hair. Afterward, chatting away as if as if he can understand a single word she’s saying, she rips a piece of paper out of her small book, scribbles a note, and leaves it on the table. 

Suddenly the two of them are out the door and walking arm-in-arm down the street. Nicolò has no idea where they’re going or what they’re up to, but he decides he doesn’t care. When he’s with Nile, that hollow grief in his heart aches a little less. Nile has no expectations of him, and there aren’t centuries of missing history stifling the air between them. 

Things are easy here, with her. Nicolò decides to bask in that for a while.


	30. 2021

Joe is not panicking, not even a little bit.

He reads Nile’s note for the dozenth time ( _Went for a walk with Nicolò. Be right back! N_ ) and reminds himself that he trusts her beyond reproach. If he’s giving Nicolò space, he needs to _give Nicolò space_. Instead of texting to ask where they are and what they’re doing, Joe makes toast he forgets to eat because he gets distracted by how filthy the windows are. He spends half an hour digging through every cabinet in the safehouse in search of glass cleaner. 

Just as he attacks the kitchen windows with vinegar and a vengeance, the front door of the house bursts open to chatter and footsteps. Nile and Nicolò stroll into the kitchen. She’s got an arm hooked through his elbow, and he’s holding a little cardboard tray full of coffees from the cafe a few blocks away. His face is ruddy from the cold morning and laughter, and he’s the most breathtakingly handsome thing Joe has ever seen. His aching heart is going to burst with it.

“Joe! Joe, tell Nile that the drink tastes like burnt dirt, but I like it,” Nicolò blurts out immediately, as if he has been trying and failing to communicate this very important message the entirety of the walk home. 

Joe dutifully translates Ligurian into English, and then says to her, “I uh. I hadn’t thought about the fact that he’s never had coffee before. Or he doesn’t remember it. Or … whatever.” 

“Right? I didn’t realize it until he took his first sip - you should’ve seen the look on his face! Nicky always takes his coffee black, but this morning he poured two sugars and half a pitcher of cream in.”

“They didn’t have coffee in Genova when he was born there - or in Europe at all, for that matter,” Joe says. “We both had coffee for the first time in Madinah, a couple of centuries after we met.”

“Shit, does that mean …” Her eyes pop wide and she snorts. “Is this his first experience with caffeine? He’s gonna be climbing the walls in half an hour!” Nearly doubling over with giggles, she plucks the two coffees from the tray in Nicolò’s hands and lifts a spare cup. “I’ll take this to Andy and be right back. I did some research last night, and I have another theory.”

With that, she vanishes to another part of the house. Nicolò watches her go, a happy gleam in his eye that Joe hasn’t seen since … well, since the night of Merrick’s lab, before this whole insane situation started. A bizarre, thoroughly uncharacteristic pang of jealousy twinges through his chest - not because he thinks Nicolò is attracted to Nile, but because it dawns on him how young they both are, and how much that gives them in common. It’s the same connection he had to Nicolò in 1099, when they first met, and now … now Nile is here to fill that void. Nile is going to grow old with Nicolò at the same pace, to experience that rarefied camaraderie of _firsts_.

“Here. You don’t want it?” Nicolò is trying to deposit the coffee in his hands. 

“Thanks,” he says numbly, blinking to clear his thoughts as he accepts the cup.

“Nile told me you like six sugars and lots of cream. It is her fault, if it tastes wrong.”

He takes an absentminded sip. “It’s perfect.” A pause, and then he translates the phrase to English.

Nicolò flashes a grin, and only mangles the pronunciation a little when he dutifully echoes, “It’s perfect.”

Joe is _not_ going to fucking fall apart today. He is _not._

Instead, he serves Nicolò the cold toast he’d forgotten about, because he has lost his appetite, and they sit together at the kitchen table until Andy and Nile join them. 

“We need to go back to Merrick’s lab,” Nile says, pulling open the laptop. She hands Joe a little notepad full of scribbles, half in her handwriting and half by someone Joe doesn’t recognize. 

“What is this?”

“Andy’s plunder from her visit to the crime scene last night. I’ve been piecing together some of the notes this detective made, and I want to see the tech in person. I need to take pictures. I mean, Andy took a few pictures, but they’re too blurry to be helpful.”

“Why do you need more pictures?” Andy croaks, holding her cup of coffee in both hands and looking for all the world like she didn’t sleep a wink last night. Joe has known her long enough to parse her morning-after looks, and this definitely is the “spent too long thinking” look, not the “fucked someone(s) into oblivion” or “committed righteous acts of violence in the wee hours” look. 

He’s only just beginning to grow familiar with her new, novel “mortality is catching up with me” morning-after look. Maybe that’s adding an extra layer of grey to the bruise-dark circles under her eyes this morning, too. 

“You’re not the only one with sources to call on for help, and I need some idea of the kind of tech we’re dealing with, so they can get me more info.”

“This math is deeply complex,” Joe says, flipping through the notepad. It’s been a few decades since he got his doctorate in mathematics on a lark, to entertain himself when Nicky went to medical school for the third time. Keeping up with developments in the field is still one of his minor hobbies; even so, these figures are baffling. “Is this a riff off of Thorne’s equations?”

“I have no goddamn clue,” Nile replies. “I think the detective Andy stole that from was copying things they saw in the lab. I want to take the rock back there, and see what equipment they have, and see if these puzzle pieces fit together in person. We need to get serious about doing recon, if we’re going to understand what happened.”

Nicolò kicks Joe’s foot under the table, and arches an eyebrow at him. A clear _What the hell is everyone talking about?_

Andy shakes her head definitively. “No. There are too many feds crawling all over that place. There were more suits there than I expected yesterday.”

“So we go in the middle of the night,” Nile counters. “We need more information, and that’s the only place we’re going to get it.”

“Unless we find Reeve and beat the shit out of him,” Andy counters, a more enthusiastic edge to her voice. “That’s the only angle we haven’t run down yet.”

Nicolò kicks Joe again, hard enough to make him jump, his chair barking on the tiles. Joe leans over. “We’re trying to figure out where to go to find out what happened to you,” he says quietly in Ligurian. “Nile and Andy disagree on how to do that.”

Nicolò glares at Andy. “Nile yes, Andy no,” he says in English, _without_ whispering. 

“See?” Nile waves her arms. “Even Nicolò agrees with me!”

Andy _hmphs._ “Considering the last two days, I’m not all that impressed by the vote.”

“Joe.” Nile turns to him, gesturing at the notebook. “Weren’t you right on the edge of getting somewhere?”

“Ummm …” Joe riffles the pages between his fingers. “Maybe? I thought I recognized the Einstein tensor, but the rest of the variables in the field equation didn’t look right. Could have been the handwriting.”

“So you did get something!” Nile slaps a hand down on the table. “And that’s just from some random cop writing down shit they don’t really understand. If we went back to the lab and got more intel, we could learn more.”

“Or we could just _beat the shit_ out of Reeve and make _him_ show us how he was … time traveling people!

“And what makes you so sure he’ll even tell us the truth?”

Under the table, Nicolò’s knee starts bouncing. Without thinking, Joe puts a calming hand on Nicolò’s leg. 

“Why are you fighting so hard on this?” Andy snaps. “You were quick enough to back me up about Reeve when Copley was here.”

“That was before” - Nile stops, biting down on her next words with a furious look - “that was before I knew we could get the same thing by just doing a little more recon!”

“There isn’t any point in recon when we’ve got a source to interrogate,” Andy says in a harsh voice. “Every minute we waste is a minute we could be spending figuring out how to -”

“How to what?” Nile’s eyes are sparking. “How to _what_ , Andy? Why don’t you share with the class?”

“I vote we go to the lab!”

Two sets of surprised eyes turn to him, suddenly remembering he's still there. Joe feels a faint flash of irritation and guilty empathy. This is what Nicolò must feel like all of the time. Beside him, Nicolò’s knee is bouncing impatiently again. “I vote we go to the lab. It’s less risky.”

“Joe,” says Nicolò through his teeth. “Could you _please_ tell me what the fuck everyone is so angry about now?” 

“Same thing. There’s a place we could go to learn more information,” says Joe quickly in Ligurian, holding up the notebook. “Or there is an enemy we could fight that might tell us more. Andy thinks we should fight, Nile thinks we should wait.” 

“Why the hesitation?” asks Andy in English, just as impatiently. “I figured you would be on board with anything that gets us the _right_ Nicky back faster.”

“I am!” Joe says, heart squeezing painfully at _the right Nicky_. “But I also don’t want Nicolò to get hurt. He doesn’t have any training with modern weapons.” 

“Isn’t he still healing?” asks Nile.

“Yes, but I don’t …” Joe trails off helplessly, slamming the door shut on the downward panic spiral. Would time travel give Nicolò _less time_? “Look, I can get something from these equations if I just have more pieces. This one here?” He opens the notebook to another page and lays it flat on the table. “I think they were trying to copy down the Ellis-Bronnikov drainhole.”

“The what now?” Nile wrinkles her nose. 

“It was one of the early mathematical models for a traversable wormhole,” Joe explains. “Physicists and mathematicians were trying to calculate ways for a particle to pass between two different points in spacetime. It was pretty interesting stuff. I remember reading the journal article when it came out, but the ’60s were a busy time for us in terms of jobs. I never got the chance to follow up.” 

“You said traversable?” Andy says sharply. “As in both ways?”

“Yeah,” replies Joe distractedly, flipping the page, “but last I checked the math was only as far as _particles_. Wormholes generally need extreme conditions - like black holes, or objects travelling at near-light speed. You’re literally bending reality to connect two separate points in spacetime. If Reeve or anyone at the lab had been doing anything like that, I’m pretty damn sure Nicolò or the kids would have remembered.” 

“This is Greek,” says Nicolò in surprise, bending over the notebook. “ _Phi, alpha, mu …_ do they use the Greek alphabet here?”

“No. I mean yes, some people do, but not most people.” 

“So … it _isn’t_ a two-way street?” Andy’s voice sounds oddly stilted. 

“I have no idea.” Joe pushes the notebook towards Nicolò, letting him lean in closer. “I could be wrong. But it looks to me like time travel is the right working theory, and doing more recon at the lab is the safest bet.” 

“We could do recon and maybe muddle our way to a wrong answer, or we could just _go get Reeve_ and know for sure.” Andy is frowning and crossing her arms, but Joe can hear the resignation in her voice. This isn’t one of the times Andy will dig in, not when the rest of the family is against her. 

“We’ll get there,” he says, trying for conciliation. Now is not the time to stand divided “It’s been two days. I want …” His throat closes around _I want my Nicky back._ “I want to know what’s going on just as much as you do.”

Andy’s words have a tinge of her old bitterness in it. “I know you do.”

* * *

The rest of the day passes in tense anticipation. The fight about whether or not to go back to the lab segues into a much longer fight about who is going to go. All of them agree that someone needs to keep an eye on Nicolò, which leaves the choice between Nile or Joe. Andy flatly refuses to be left behind, despite multiple attempts by both Joe and Nile to convince her that showing her face on-site again was too much risk. 

Joe initially pushes to go, because he might be able to make sense of what mathematical evidence they find. However, he doesn’t count on Nile being so oddly insistent, or for Andy to be so oddly _resistant_. Something between Nile and Andy has gone a bit wrong - maybe during their trip to India, maybe sometime in the last two days when Joe was too busy worrying about what-ifs and worst-case-scenarios to pay attention to his own family. He kicks himself mentally, watching Andy and Nile snap at each other over lunch, then dinner. 

There wouldn’t be so much fighting if Nicky was here, Joe thinks wistfully. Nicky can hold a grudge better than anyone Joe has ever met, but unless there’s something serious involved, Nicky always manages to make their pettier family fights seem unnecessary. Joe usually wants to clear the air and let the argument take its course. Nicky would ask whether it was really worth the conflict.

 _Speaking of which_. Joe looks over at Nicolò, who for the last few hours has been snoring softly into the couch. True to Nile’s prediction, Nicolò started bouncing off the walls about twenty minutes after breakfast. Joe walked with him around the neighborhood right around Nile and Andy’s second round of whether or not (and when, and why) they needed to call Copley. Nicolò had babbled on about everything he saw - how to read that sign in English, what was the name of that car, why is my heart beating so fast? They had separated - in the face of Nicolò’s obvious awkward uncertainty - to pray, and afterward Nicolò crashed hard in the middle of a brightly colored ESL cartoon playing on Nile’s laptop. 

Andy and Nile had left shortly before, promising to keep Joe updated. 

The light from the screen is still illuminating the room - some random research video Joe found on YouTube to give him an excuse to stay with Nicolò. It highlights the folds of the dusty couch afghan Joe had draped over him, the shadows beneath his eyes, the curve of his slightly open mouth. If it weren’t for the long hair, the defensive tight curl of his shoulders, it could be Joe’s own Nicky beside him. 

Joe leans wearily back into the soft cushions, pressing his hands firmly against his eyelids. _Here and now, what is in your hands._ _Let that which you say be what you do …_

The vibrating of his cell phone takes him by surprise. Joe starts up, fumbling around and finally locating his phone, fallen between the couch cushions.

“Nile? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Andy.” Nile’s panicked voice rings out over the speaker. “She’s gone. I … I think someone might have taken her.”


	31. 1099

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for internalized homophobia in this chapter.

“Would you like help?”

Nicky starts, tipping his head back and squinting up at the stranger standing in front of him. He’s been sitting in the dense steam of the _harara_ , lost in thought for so long, that his fingers have pruned. “Sorry?”

The man steps closer, a stone scraper in one hand and his basket of toiletries over his other. “I’ll clean your back, you clean mine,” he tries again, in Greek this time, working off the assumption that Nicky’s dazed state is due to language difficulty instead of a thoroughly bruised heart. 

“No thanks,” Nicky replies in Arabic. 

“I’m offering because you look lost. Like maybe you aren’t sure how this works.” He waves the stone scraper vaguely at the rest of the room, and Nicky realizes how crowded the hammam has grown since he arrived a while ago. He took his time in the other chambers of the complex, using a brass bowl to bathe with cold water and shaving before he retreated to the hottest room in the rear of the building. He ensconced himself into one of the iwans along the wall and hasn’t moved since, oblivious to the other men coming and going around him. 

“I am not lost,” Nicky says. This is a bold-faced lie when it comes to almost everything in his life right now, except his familiarity with hammams. An attendant will help him soap and scrub, should he wish it; this stranger’s offer is unnecessary at best and an awkward come-on at worst. Over the centuries, he has perfected a certain weighty, self-assured stare for this precise situation: when someone who is not Joe hits on him. He brings it fully to bear, and even from his disadvantaged position, sitting naked on the floor with only a small towel in his lap, it causes the stranger to take a full step back. 

“As you please,” he huffs, shuffling away.

Out of habit, Nicky sizes up the rest of the room, squinting at the indistinct shapes on the lookout for … what? There are no threats here. His instincts are off because _everything_ feels wrong. Yusuf has left him behind for at least a year. Given how giddy Yusuf was to be rid of him in the street today, it will probably be even longer.

Quỳnh had been gentle but persistent in her suggestion that Nicky give Yusuf space. After all, how could he make a proper choice if Nicky was, for all intents and purposes, making it for him? What sort of love is so weak, so _unsure_ , that it must be foisted upon someone who does not want it? 

Nicky’s instinct to reach for Joe, to orient every aspect of himself in relation to Joe, is so deep-seated that he had forgotten what it felt like to restrain himself. He had forgotten _how_. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries to remember the last time he felt so wrong-footed with Yusuf. Was he thirty-five? Forty? At some point during those first few years they spent together, Nicky came to understand beyond doubt that Yusuf would open his arms anytime he asked, and even when he didn’t. Their love became unconditional and unrestrained. 

For nearly a millennium, their affection has been reckless. Perhaps unlearning such an old reckless habit in the space of two weeks was an impossible task, but he can’t help blaming himself for frightening Yusuf away to Mahdia. For overwhelming him so thoroughly that he might talk himself into _marrying someone else_. 

Quỳnh was right to chide Nicky. The fault is entirely his own.

Since the day they killed each other in Jerusalem, the longest he and Yusuf have been separated is a matter of months. Now Yusuf is sailing home for a year, maybe more. _I’ll look for you in Cairo, if I come_ , he had said. 

A year, or even ten, isn’t so long, given the breadth of Nicky’s life, but that span of time without Joe is a bleak prospect indeed. He isn’t a fragile thing, brittle enough to break at the first sign of adversity; he’ll weather this storm, and come out the other side intact. But for today, at least, he feels justified in wallowing in his misery. 

“Oh.”

The surprised noise is a huff of breath, not even a proper syllable, but Nicky would recognize that sound out of a chorus of a billion. He opens his eyes and, sure enough, discovers Yusuf’s hastily retreating back making a beeline for the rotunda exit, vanishing in a swirl of steam. Nicky’s heart jolts as if he’s just swallowed a live wire, because he’d assumed Yusuf would jump onto the first ship he saw sailing out of the harbor. For whatever reason, he’s still here, and he’s still choosing _not_ to engage with Nicky. 

It takes every scrap of Nicky’s self-control not to leap to his feet and bolt after him. _His choice, his choice_ , he repeats to himself like a mantra. Clinging to his willpower by the fingernails, he lasts ten minutes before pulling on his new clothes and stepping out into the street.

It’s just after sunset, warm light pouring across the city like molten gold. Yusuf is nowhere to be seen. Feeling a fresh round of self-pity, Nicky walks to the inn nearby where Quỳnh booked the three of them in for the night. 

Through the inn’s courtyard, he catches sight of Yusuf sitting in the common room - deliciously clean, also wearing new clothes, and eating a meal. He’s facing the door with an air of expectation, a second bowl of food waiting on the low table in front of him. Nicky hesitates, heart thundering in his ears and face burning with blood, nearly tripping over his own toes with indecision. He really ought to go directly to the room he’s sharing with Quỳnh and Andromache, and save himself more embarrassment and the agony of chasing away Yusuf even faster.

“Come sit, eat,” Yusuf calls to him through the door, exasperated. “I don’t leave until the day after tomorrow. We’re both leeching off of the ladies’ hospitality, so we might as well talk.”

Nerves tingling worse than the time he was dragged behind a horse and had to literally re-grow half his skin, Nicky enters and sits on the rickety stool across from Yusuf. 

“This is for you,” he says, nudging the extra bowl of lamb and couscous. “Courtesy of Andromache, because I spent all of our money already to book my passage home. Did she tell you that you couldn’t come back to the inn until you were clean, too? She said I smelled like a pile of horse shit and shoved me into the closest hammam.”

“‘Donkey’s breath’ was Quỳnh’s exact turn of phrase,” Nicky replies. “But she has coin and I do not, so I didn’t argue. I didn’t want to argue. For the first time in two weeks, I’m not wearing anyone’s blood.”

Yusuf snorts. “You shaved, too?”

“Only out of habit,” Nicky says, rubbing his cheek with his knuckles. “I shouldn’t have. I’ll fit in better if I let it grow.” 

“You _should_ let it grow,” he agrees. “No reason to worry about beard burn, is there?”

Nicky swallows hard, poking his food around the bowl. The lamb is mush, the couscous overcooked. “No, there isn’t.”

A moment of fraught silence passes, Yusuf shoveling food into his mouth as if trying to stop himself from saying something. Nicky knows this mood - he knows _all_ of Joe’s moods - but this one in particular happens when his head is bursting with thoughts. They’ll inevitably escape his mouth as surely as steam from a teakettle. 

Exactly as he predicted, Yusuf blurts out, “The preference for men … it’s a bad habit. A little vice. A thing I’m supposed to grow out of. Or so I have been told.” He flicks a piece of couscous off of his spoon, and it lands neatly in the middle of his plate. He lifts his gaze to Nicky. “I keep thinking that nine hundred years is a long time for you to cling such to a youthful vice.”

Nicky’s stool creaks precariously as he sits back, staring at his flushed cheeks. He is so young, so _unsure_ , Nicky’s heart aches in an entirely novel way, for a day already full of heartaches. 

“My parents said I should grow out of it, too. And my brothers. And my priest.” Nicky taps the tip of his nose. “They told me I would grow out of my attraction to men, and that I would grow into my nose. They were wrong on both counts; neither of them were ill-fitting in the first place. If my long life has taught me anything, it’s that God made me like this, nose and all.”

Yusuf tries to swallow his couscous and ends up coughing, covering his mouth with a fist. For a wild moment Nicky thinks he might choke to death right here at the table; he’s running through mitigation scenarios in his head, deciding how he’ll disguise the corpse from the innkeeper until Yusuf revives. 

But then Yusuf manages a strained gulp. Red-faced, he sucks in a deep breath and scrubs a hand across his forehead. “And what did your priest have to say about that?”

“Nothing,” says Nicky. “By the time I realized the truth, he was many years and many miles behind me.” 

“Ah.” Yusuf clears his throat again. The silence stretches for another long minute. _Nile would have hated this_ , Nicky thinks abruptly, with a sudden sharp pang. _She never liked awkward silences._

“So then what did your family say?” Yusuf says abruptly, a forced casual air to his voice. 

“About liking men?”

“Yes. That.” Yusuf is looking determinedly down at his bowl. “That, and everything else.”

“Immortality, you mean.”

“ _Wallahi_ , I still can’t say it without feeling strange.” Yusuf thumps the bowl back down on the table. “I still can’t believe … I can’t _fit_ the last weeks into the same world as this one. I walk down the street and I think, ‘There is the hill I saw with my uncle when he took me to Pelusium that first trip; there is the old amphitheater; there is the shadow of the mosque tower over the square.’ How can I be so different, when all of these things are the same? And yet,” Yusuf gestures vaguely between them, “here we are.” 

“Here we are,” Nicky echoes. _For now._

“So how did you do it?” Yusuf asks again impatiently. “You’re the one saying you are a thousand years old. How did you break the news to your family?” 

Nicky allows himself a faint smile. “Are you saying you believe me now?”

Yusuf glares. “Maybe. Andromache and Quỳnh have so far been much more sensible than you, and they seem to be accepting it. Your brains are still disturbed, but if you have any useful knowledge from this … other life you lived I might as well hear it. And you are avoiding my question.”

“If you’re looking for guidance on how to tell your own family about your immortality, I’m afraid I must disappoint you once more.” Nicky sighs. “I never told mine. When I left for the Holy Land, a part of me expected never to return. By the time I had accepted what I was … well. It seemed to me that asking my last living brother to make room in his family’s life once again after so many years would be too much to ask. So I didn’t.”

A horrified look crosses Yusuf’s face. “And you just never went home again?”

“We were - _are_ -” Nicky catches himself “- very different people, especially the first time. I was not so close to my remaining family members as you were. I went back to Genova after many years, to try and get closure. By then, Luciano had died in some kind of drunken accident, and Vincenti and Agnesia were expecting their first grandchild. I didn’t let them see me.”

“And what did I do, in this future you see?” Yusuf presses. “There is no way I would abandon my father and mother without at least letting them know what had happened to their son - bad habits or not.”

“Well, for one thing you killed me quite a few more times.” 

“Good,” Yusuf grumbles.

“Not that I didn’t deserve it, mind you,” Nicky inclines his head. “But the first time around, I was trying to kill you as well. We took almost twice as long as we should have to get to Cairo because neither of us were getting much sleep, what with stabbing each other all the time. We had to cut inland just to avoid getting picked up by the army. When we got to the city, you told me in no uncertain terms that you never wanted to see my face again. And then you left.”

“Sounds familiar so far.”

“True,” Nicky admits, “but that first time I didn’t give you a promise to let you go. I followed you around for the next few days, watching you meet with a friend of your family and arrange passage home. You found me sleeping in the street a few days later, and we decided … to come to an understanding.” 

The memory of that first arrival in Cairo will never leave him. Nicky remembers being awestruck by the sheer _size_ of the city - by the crowds, the buildings, the sounds and smells. In a way, he can sympathize with Yusuf’s current uncomfortable dissonance. When it had been just the two of them on the road, Nicky had had the luxury of snarling and clawing back. In Cairo, among thousands of packed bodies, he had watched in growing panic as the only other human like him had slipped further and further away. The Yusuf of that other life had embraced a stranger, someone Nicky had never seen before, and Yusuf _laughed,_ transforming the furious, grieving face from Jerusalem into the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. In that moment Nicky had known, somehow, that he would spend the rest of his life chasing that smile. 

In front of him, the Yusuf of _this_ time and place is shaking his head. “And then I brought you home and introduced you to my parents? If this is supposed to be a hint, you’re doing even worse than you were on the road.” 

“That was another life,” Nicky says hastily, pushing away the memories. “The details of that other future may not translate to this one; I didn’t mean to pressure you. You have told me you don’t wish for my presence, and I will honor your wish to return to your family alone. I am not the man I was then.” 

“ _Then_ being … two weeks ago?” Yusuf raises an eyebrow, but the disbelief in his voice is more gentle mockery than the genuine anger from al-Arish. 

“Two weeks, a thousand years.” Nicky waves his hand wearily. “If you still don’t feel safe when I leave, you can ask Andromache and Quỳnh to hold me back. They like you, you know. I’m sure one of them would stand guard by the door if you asked.”

“Would they?” A thoughtful glance at the door leading to the sleeping quarters. “Quỳnh seems to have spent more time speaking to you. And I think Andromache would rather I stayed here than returned home.” 

“She is not effusive with her affection. Give it time.” The familiar dull misery and self-pity is welling in his chest. “Enjoy your journey home to your family, Yusuf. You deserve to rest.” 

“Did I have -” Yusuf breaks off in the middle of his question, biting at his lip as he struggles uncharacteristically with his own words. “I didn’t fully return to my family, in that other future you saw. I didn’t wed Meriem, I didn’t stay in Mahdia. I travelled around the world with you and Andromache and Quỳnh and those others you mentioned, going on quests and cooking bissara.” He lets out a slow breath, bracing his hands on the table. “I don’t get to live a normal life, do I?” 

There is nothing in the world Nicky wants so much as to be able to put his arms around Yusuf right now. “You did get married,” he says as gently as he can. The _who_ can wait for another time. “I am sorry that you cannot have the life you would have lived, if we had not been set apart in this way. And I can’t give you any prophecies, or any certainty. But I can promise you that there is joy. There is hope, and love, and you will not lose any of it by going back to Mahdia now. You will not be alone.” 

The pause this time stretches long enough that Nicky makes another halfhearted attempt at his cooling supper. _A year or more_ , he thinks dully. The last time he and Joe had been separated for more than a few weeks, Joe had flung himself into Nicky’s arms when they had been reunited. Who knows what welcome he might receive this time - if any? 

“What will you do?”

“What?” Surprised, Nicky looks up. 

“What will you do while I am going back to my family?” Yusuf takes a careful drink from his cup on the table. “We agreed on at least a year.”

“I am … not sure,” Nicky admits. He truly isn’t. His plans for the future had gone little farther than arriving in Cairo, finding a room, and waiting there for as long as it took to see if Yusuf returned. “I would like to stay with Andromache and Quỳnh as long as they will have me. We’ll be together as far as Cairo, at least.” 

“You won’t get lonely?” says Yusuf, in a deliberately casual tone. “I mean, if God made you like this, nose and all, then surely you would rather seek out some … other company?”

Nicky blinks. Then again, and again - his eyelids aren’t fluttering, good God he’s surely too old and too experienced for that - but he’s undeniably _flustered_. His husband (who is not yet his husband) is asking him whether he plans to fuck other men while they’re apart. 

Much, _much_ later in their relationship, this is a familiar game between them. Usually in a bar or public square - or even sometimes on particularly boring missions - one of them chooses a stranger in the crowd and hypothesizes how they’d pick him up, what they’d do to him in an alley or in a cab or at home. They play this enjoyable jealousy contest cocooned in the safety of their rock-solid relationship. If one of them goes so far as to flirt with another man as part of the evening’s entertainment, or on the rare occasions they invite someone to join them in bed, they only ever do these things with and for each other. _Together._ It’s about the two of them; everything and everyone else is peripheral. 

But this game doesn’t exist between them today. Not yet.

Yusuf stares at him with glittering eyes, clearly surprised and transfixed by Nicky’s open-mouthed, eyelid-fluttering bewilderment. It dawns on him that maybe this really _isn’t_ so different than sitting with Joe at a bar, spinning out hypotheticals about picking up other men.

“Other company ... I had not thought of it. But you have a point, Yusuf.” He folds his hands in his lap, prayer-like, and lifts his face toward the ceiling in contemplation. “I do not enjoy starving to death, and will have to work in Cairo. I could put myself in service guarding a merchant’s family or his warehouses. Wouldn’t it be agreeable if that merchant has a fit, handsome steward who oversees his affairs and has a taste for cock?” Yusuf’s eyes have gone wide. Nicky pretends not to notice, leaning forward conspiratorially. “You have connections in Cairo. Will you write me a note of introduction to just such a household, with just such a handsome prospect, so I can keep myself fed and entertained?”

It’s Yusuf’s turn to blink in bewilderment. “I … I don’t …”

Nicky bursts into genuine, belly-deep laughter and kicks the other man’s foot under the table. “Your face! _Santa Maria_ , you think I am so desperate?”

“You … don’t want a note of introduction for work in Cairo?” Yusuf hazards, only half joking, still fretful in these unfamiliar waters. “If you ask, I would -”

“I can find my own work and keep myself busy. The weather in Cairo is hot enough, I don’t need a steward to keep my bed warm.” Elbows on the table, he rests his chin on his fist and gazes at Yusuf, whose cheeks have gone even deeper red. _If you ask, I would._ Nicky doesn’t have time to dwell on that right now, but it sure as hell is going to keep him up tonight. 

_You got married_ , he had said, and Yusuf swerved determinedly around that piece of ... information? Bait? Either way, he didn’t take it. What would Nicky do except scare away the love of his life, if he spoke of his fidelity now? _I have never loved another who has walked this Earth the way I love you, Yusuf. I will have none but you, I am meant for none but you, I belong to none but you. I promise that from this moment until the heat death of the universe, however long God wills us to live, you alone hold my heart in your perfectly imperfect hands._

Yusuf is already fleeing from him across the breadth of Africa. Such talk - honest though it may be - would only frighten him away faster, further. What if he ended up in the Americas several hundred years ahead of the Europeans? (Come to think of it, that might save quite a few people. Nicky files this thought away for later examination, when he might be in a position to act on it.) 

“Will you bring Meriem to Cairo when you come next year?” Nicky asks instead, and his voice is perfectly normal. In fact, this is definitely the most casual and relaxed he’s ever sounded.

Yusuf makes a noncommittal noise, shoveling more food into his mouth. “With my stint in al-Quds, I turned this business trip into a fiasco. The next time I leave Mahdia my father will insist my brother comes along to supervise.”

“Adil?” Nicky replies hopefully. “I miss his sense of humor and his bird obsession. Has he started keeping hawks yet?”

He drops his spoon into the bowl with a loud clatter, and then he drops his head into his hands. “Stop! Stop doing that!”

“Sorry,” Nicky replies, gnawing on his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“I believe you. I believe you never do,” he sighs in resignation, grinding the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. “Adil has two hawks.” 

“I don’t remember their names,” Nicky says, like a second apology. 

He drags his fingers down his face and gives Nicky a long-suffering look. “Rih and Musamman.”

“It’s getting late. Are you two going to stay here all night?” Andromache stands at the door of the common room, a bag of freshly purchased fruit over her shoulder. “Quỳnh and I are going to bed.”

“We’re coming,” Yusuf says, rising. Nicky wolfs down the last of his mediocre supper before following.


End file.
